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CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 
CHARACTER-SHOWING 



CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 
CHARACTER-SHOWING 






BY 

H. CLAY TRUMBULL 




PHILADELPHIA 

JOHN D. WATTLES, Publisher 

1889 






Copyright, 1889 

BY 

H. CLAY TRUMBULL 



ii~*fs~U 



PREFACE. 



Lessons from one man's experiences and 
observations will not be of value to all. But 
lessons from any man's experiences and ob- 
servations will be of value to some. No man 
stands, in his feelings and sympathies, for his 
entire race. But every man, in his sympa- 
thies and feelings, stands for a class. 

Hence it is, that whatever truths have made 
a profound impression on a man in the prog- 
ress of his life-course are likely to make a 
correspondent impression on others who are 
like him, if he can bring those truths with 
any vividness before them. And when a 
series of related truths have excited interest 
in their detached separateness, they will 
hardly fail to excite fresh interest in their 
exhibited relation to one another and to a 
common central truth. 

5 



6 PREFACE. 

The essays in this volume are an outcome 
of their writer's observings and experien- 
cings in his varied life-course. They were 
received with interest as editorial contribu- 
tions in the pages of The Sunday School 
Times, while appearing there, one by one, 
during a term of ten years or more; and 
their republication has been urged by many 
who desire them for preservation in a per- 
manent form. They are now presented in a 
new light, in a logical order for the elucida- 
tion and emphasis of a truth which is com- 
mon to them all. 

The gaining of the thoughts of this vol- 
ume has not been without cost to its writer. 
His hope is that the considering of them 
will not be without stimulus and profit to 
its readers. 

H. C. T. 

Philadelphia, 

August 14,. 1889. 



CONTENTS. 



I. PAGK 

What is Character? 9 

II. 

Exceptional Character the Measure of 

the Man 17 

III. 
The Composition of Our Characters 33 

IV. 
The Unifying Factor in Character 43 

V. 

The Moral Basis of Practical Efficiency / . 51 

VI. 
Personal Character in the World's History . 59 

VII. 
The Difference Between Knowing the Person 

and Knowing the Character 71 

VIII. 
Always in the Balances 79 

IX. 
Methods of Character Judging 87 

7 



8 CONTENTS. 

X. PAGE 

An Instant Judgment Not Always Hasty ... 95 

XJ. 
The Tremulousness of True Courage 103 

XII. 
Tempted to Give Up II3 

XIII. 

Heroism in Unfought Battles I2 ^ 

XIV. 
Composite Mental Photography 133 

XV. 
Gain in Character Through Its Expression . 143 

XVI. 
The Cost of Being Polished 153 

XVII. 
The Attitude of Wisdom v 161 

XVIII. 
The Secret of Contentment . . . . , 173 

XIX. 
Character Indicated in Modes of Thanking . 185 

XX. 

Facing Backward, or Facing Forward .... 195 



L 

WHAT IS CHARACTER ? 



Few terms are used more frequently and 
more vaguely in comments on life, and in 
counsels to the young, than the term "char- 
acter." We are told that this person has a 
strong character, and that that person has a 
weak character; that one has a great deal 
of character, and another has no character; 
that one has a good character, and another 
a bad character. Young people are told 
that character is everything to them, that 
their character is sure of disclosure, sure to 
assert itself; and they are enjoined to main- 
tain a high character, to strive for a noble 
character, to cultivate a character worthy of 
admiration, to show real character. 

What is meant by " character" in all these 
statements and admonitions ? What is char- 
acter, as distinct from reputation, disposition, 

9 



I O CHAR A CTER-SHA PING AND 

peculiarities of taste, and habits of conduct? 
How many minds are clear on tlys point? 

The term " character," like most descrip- 
tive terms in common use, has more than 
one meaning; and the interchanging and 
overlapping of these different meanings are 
the cause of much confusion in its uses and 
applications. Primarily, "character" is the 
scratch, or stamp, or sign, by which an en- 
graver, or other worker, marks his work as 
his own. Its use goes back to the days 
when every brick manufactured on the plains 
of Shinar, or by the banks of the Nile, re- 
ceived its graven stamp designating the ruler 
by whose orders that brick was made. 

The root of the word itself appears in all 
the Aryan languages, with the same mean- 
ing and uses, down to the present day. It 
is applied to the letters of the alphabet, 
which were first cut, or graved, or stamped, 
in the clay, or on tablets of wax, or metal, 
or stone. It is another name for the signa- 
ture, or monogram, or personal superscrip- 
tion, or trade-mark, of the potter, the painter, 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. II 

the sculptor, the writer, or any other artist 
or artisan, ©r inventor, as indicative of the 
personality of the maker, or of the distinc- 
tive individuality of the article marked. It 
is the visible token by which a thing is dis- 
tinguished from every other thing with which 
it might otherwise be confounded. 

As applied to a person, " character" pri- 
marily means personality or individuality; 
but in usage it means also a great deal more. 
We speak of the various "characters" intro- 
duced into a drama; by which we mean no 
more than the different individuals appearing 
there. Again we speak of the particular 
character of each one of those characters ; 
by which we mean "the sum of qualities" 
which distinguishes one of those persons from 
any other one. With the " character " Ham- 
let, for example, every reader of Shakespeare 
is familiar. Over the character of Hamlet 
all the critics are in dispute interminably. 
One's character, which is everything to one's 
self, which is sure to disclose itself, and by 
which one will ultimately be estimated and 



12 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

judged, is one realest self, one's innermost 
distinctive personality of being, one's quali- 
ties by which he is differentiated and distin- 
guished from mankind as a mass. 

There are certain qualities which are com- 
mon to men, which are possessed by all. 
They, of course, do not mark a man's indi- 
vidual character; for they are no more one 
man's than another's. A great many persons 
have nothing, or next to nothing, — either by 
birth or acquirement, — which distinguishes 
them from the mass of mankind. Hence 
they are said to have no character, or little 
character. Thus Shakespeare's King Henry 
says, of the characterless throng : 

" Look, as I blow this feather from my face, 
And as the air blows it to me again, 
Obeying with my mind when I do blow, 
And yielding to another when it [he] blows, 
Commanded always by the greater gust; 
Such is the lightness of you common men." 

Again there are persons of strong indi- 
viduality; persons who are not only men 
and women of the common race of man, 



CHA RA CTER-SHO WING. 1 3 

but who are themselves ; they think for them- 
selves, and act by themselves ; they are more 
than a portion of mankind in general; they 
have their own convictions, their own pur- 
poses, their own personality. Such persons 
have character — good character or bad char- 
acter, admirable character or detestable char- 
acter, as the case may be; and the measure of 
their character is the measure of their worth 
and the measure of their power. Their char- 
acters settle their place among, or apart from, 
their fellows. 

Jesus Christ is declared to be the "ex- 
press image," or more literally the " im- 
pressed character," of God himself, of God's 
personality. In other words, the distinctive 
character of Jesus is the God-like character. 
And those whose characters are conformed 
to the character of Jesus approach more and 
more nearly to the impressed character of 
God, which was on man when he was origi- 
nally created in the image of God ; they are 
stamped visibly as God's characteristic work, 
as his "peculiar people." 



1 4 CHA RA CTER-SHA PING A ND 

Eccentricity is not character. Being pe- 
culiar is not necessarily the exhibit of indi- 
viduality. A man may be quite exceptional 
in his tastes and methods of conduct without 
having or disclosing real character. Dr. 
Johnson's character, for example, was not 
shown in his habit of nervously twirling and 
twisting his fingers, and of whimsically lay- 
ing his hand on the top of every post which 
he passed in the street. Those were his 
eccentricities, his oddities. But his character 
was shown in his standing with bared head 
for hours out in the cold rain, at the old 
book-stall in Uttoxeter market, in self-im- 
posed penance for his disobedience to his 
father long years before. He was man 
enough to remember and grieve over his 
early transgression, and to do his utmost to 
atone for his boyhood's neglect of duty. 

Eccentricities are superficial. Peculiarities 
of taste and speech and manner are of the 
outer man. They do not come from, nor 
do they indicate, the inner nature. Char- 
acter, on the contrary, is of the innermost 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 5 

being. " Deeper than the judgment, deeper 
than the feelings, lies the seat of human 
character, — in that which is the mystery of 
all beings and all things, in what we call 
their ' nature/ without knowing where it lies, 
what it is, or how it wields its power." The 
best part of a true man's nature is never on 
the surface; the weakest and most unat- 
tractive portion often shows there. 

"Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; 
He who would search for pearls must dive below." 

Conduct is not character; although char- 
acter in large measure controls and directs 
conduct. A man whose character, so far as 
he has a character, is bad, will frequently 
shape his outward conduct after the pattern 
of the upright; he will strive to appear and 
to do as if he had a good character. In the 
long run a man's conduct must conform to, 
and so will disclose, his character; but this 
does not by any means make character and 
conduct identical. Conduct is one of the 
means by which character is made known 



1 6 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING. 

to others; but many things are to be con- 
sidered when judging a man's character from 
his actions. 

Nor, again, is it true that reputation is char- 
acter, although the two terms are often used 
interchangeably, as when we speak of a man's 
character for integrity, for veracity, for cour- 
age, or for generosity. " Character lies in or 
pertains to the person, and is the mark of 
what he is; reputation depends upon others, 
and is what they think of him. A man may 
have a fair reputation, though his character 
is not really good." The only sure basis of 
a permanently good reputation is a good 
character; but many a man's reputation is 
for a time better than his character — if that 
were known — would warrant; and sometimes 
a man has a poorer reputation than his true 
character deserves. A man's character is 
what a man furnishes as the foundation of 
his reputation, or of his fame. A man's repu- 
tation, or fame, is what he gets from the world 
in return for his exhibit of character. 



II. 

EXCEPTIONAL CHARACTER THE 
MEASURE OF THE MAN. 



In the lower sense of common usage, a 
man's " character " is the sum of his qualities, 
whereby he is distinguished from other indi- 
viduals. In the higher and more restricted 
sense, "character" is a pre-eminence of per- 
sonality in the direction of one's better and 
nobler being. In either the one sense or the 
other, character is the measure of the man; 
for the sum of a man's qualities as an indi- 
vidual is the man's self; and the pre-emi- 
nence of a man's distinctive qualities marks 
the man's peculiar self. For all practical 
purposes, therefore, it is sufficient to say, that 
a man's superiority of personality in the di- 
rection of the right is the real measure of 
the man. 

For example, a man who is six feet four 
2 17 



1 8 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING AND 

inches in stature, is a man of mark wherever 
he goes. He towers above his fellows. He 
can see beyond them. It is quite impos- 
sible for him to avoid pre-eminence in any 
company. In a sense, this is because that 
man is six feet four inches high. In an- 
other sense, it is because that man is eight 
inches higher than the average man. Until 
he passed five feet eight inches, he had 
no prominence, he was of no special note. 
Every inch above the average, was, however, 
a move in the direction of pre-eminence; and 
his notable measurement was from that mark, 
upward. As in physical stature, so in mental 
acquirements and capabilities. It is what a 
man can do over and above the average man 
in any sphere of endeavor, that is his real 
measure of attainment; that is his measure 
of power in that direction. 

No one stops to ask whether a man lives 
and breathes, has the power of locomotion 
and speech, has a moral sense, and has the 
ordinary use and training of the common 
faculties of humanity, when that man is to be 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 9 

passed upon as to his fitness for a special ser- 
vice of importance. All this is to be taken 
for granted, to begin with. The practical 
measuring is to be made from this pre-sup- 
posed starting-point; and the real question 
is, What special qualities has this man to fit 
him for this special place, apart from those 
qualities which are essential to his being 
counted among living and moving men in 
the mass? 

As it is in the physical and mental spheres, 
so it is in the sphere of prevailing-personal- 
ity; until a man passes the average standard, 
he cannot be a man of mark ; he cannot be 
entitled to recognition for measurement as a 
man among men, or as a man apart from 
men. His practical measure is, therefore, the 
measurement of his superiority above the 
common reach of his fellows in nobler being 
and doing; and this is what is called "real 
character." This is as clearly true, as that 
the practical measure of a water-spout at sea 
is its rise above the common ocean-level, not 
its height above the lower bed of the sea. 



20 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

He who is spoken of as a man of upright 
character, as a man of courageous character, 
as a man of decision of character, as a man 
of unselfish character, as a man of affection- 
ate character, is by that very mention desig- 
nated as a man of exceptional character in 
the direction indicated. The world gives no 
marked credit to a man for being or doing 
as well as the average. Until he passes that 
level, he has no award of special commenda- 
tion from the community generally; even 
though he might be censured for a failure to 
attain to the average degree. Other nations 
than England expect every man to do his 
duty, and are unready to award him a medal, 
or a vote of thanks, unless he has shown 
some pre-eminence in that line of achieve- 
ment. Hence it is, that a man's measure of 
character, his measure of power and worth, 
may be said to be coincident with the meas- 
ure of his difference, in the right direction, 
from the average standard of being and doing 
in his sphere. 

It is not that a mere difference from the 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 21 

average standard of purpose and action either 
constitutes or indicates character; but it is 
that character in its truest sense involves a 
difference from that standard. A difference 
may result from falling below the average, or 
from an eccentricity at the level of the aver- 
age; in such a case, it is no proof of real 
character, but rather an indication of the lack 
of character. Character shows itself in a 
difference which comes from an outgoing or 
an uprising beyond the best standard of the 
average, in the direction of the truer, the 
purer, or the nobler, in the realm of duty or 
of affection. 

The Swiss soldiers who followed Arnold 
de Winckelreid, in his memorable onset at 
Sempach, were fully up to the average stan- 
dard of soldierly courage. It was his think- 
ing and daring to move forward alone for the 
making of a way through the impregnable 
line of the enemy, by gathering a death-har- 
vest of lances into his own great heart, that 
marked him as the man of heroic character 
there; and his eminence in the record of that 



22 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

memorable conflict is identical with his pre- 
eminence over the measure of courage com- 
mon to the soldiers who were ready to follow 
in his steps. So it is in every case of notable 
character-exhibit: he who is distinguished 
must have something to "distinguish" him; 
and he is distinguished in his personality and 
record by just so far as he is "distinguished" 
from the average personality and record in 
his sphere. 

What is it to be "a hero"? A "hero " is 
simply the English form of the Greek " heros" 
which primarily meant "a man," a real man, 
a separate and unmistakable man ; as distinct 
from " anthropos" or mankind in general. By 
a recognition of this very truth, that a man's 
distinctness as a man among men marks and 
measures his exceptional character and capa- 
bilities the Greeks came to call a grand man, 
or a pre-eminent man, a hero, as another way 
of saying that he was a " distinguished " man. 

"Dost thou know what a hero is?" asks 
Longfellow; and then gives answer, "Why, 
a hero is as much as one should say — a hero." 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 23 

A hero is a man. There is heroism in all real 
manliness. A real man is a real hero. This 
it is which gives force to Carlyle's question, 
"If hero means sincere man y why may not 
every one of us be a hero ? " The answer is, 
that it requires character, exceptional char- 
acter, to make one willing to be a man. Most 
men are afraid to be themselves. They shrink 
from being " distinguished." Their preference 
is to conform themselves to the common stan- 
dard of their sphere; to be like others, rather 
than to be like themselves alone. Where 
this feeling prevails, heroism is an impos- 
sibility. 

The first question commonly asked in the 
matter of dress is, What do others wear? 
What is the fashion? What is the prevail- 
ing style? An answer to that question com- 
monly settles the asker's opinion in that 
sphere. The wish is, to be like others in 
this matter; not to be like one's own self. 
Character in dress is never shown by follow- 
ing the fashion in dress ; it may be shown by 
setting the fashion, and again by wisely, and 



24 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

in good taste, deviating from the fashion. So, 
all the way up in the scale of thought and 
action: the common wish is, to do as others 
do; to be as others are; to speak and act 
in accordance with conventional — generally 
agreed upon — standards. Character cannot 
be shown in such conformity; it does not be- 
come character in its best sense until it rises 
above the average, and so departs from the 
conventional; then it is characteristic and 
distinguished. 

The world recognizes the lower and undis- 
tinguished level of the average standard in 
manners and morals, when it speaks of " com- 
mon honesty," " common fairness/' "common 
decency/' and the like. The man who falls 
short of the common level is looked down 
upon with contempt. Only he who rises 
above that level is looked up to. One could 
not be seen by those who looked up for him, 
unless he were higher than their level, higher 
than the average standard in his sphere. He 
who has no more than common honesty, 
common fairness, common decency, is not 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 25 

entitled to a character for honesty, fairness, 
or decency. The measurement of real char- 
acter begins where the common standard 
ends. It is this truth, which prompts Sir 
Thomas Browne to counsel his friend : " Sit 
not down in the popular seats and common 
level of virtues, but endeavor to make them 
heroical." Unless a man is willing to be un- 
like others in being and in doing, he cannot be 
distinguished for either his being or his doing. 
The Bible emphasizes repeatedly this truth, 
that a man must not conform his ways to the 
common standard, if he would have and show 
character. Moses said, "Thou shalt not fol- 
low a multitude to do evil." Paul went 
farther, and suggested that it is not right 
to let the multitude settle the question of 
what is evil. " Let each man be fully assured 
in his own mind" on points of personal duty; 
let him have and show character in deciding 
for himself in all such matters. And in its 
record of individual lives, the Bible continu- 
ally uplifts an exceptional independence of 
character as the measure of heroism. 



26 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

It is because Caleb and Joshua would not 
conform their opinions to those of their asso- 
ciates, that they stand out as men of charac- 
ter. It is because Rahab and Ruth would 
not let the choice of their people be their 
choice, that they are given so honorable a 
place in sacred story. It is the refusal of 
the four Hebrew youths in Babylon to eat and 
drink just as all about them ate and drank, 
which marks their nobleness as characteris- 
tic and distinguished. 

And how tenderly and lovingly the sacred 
chronicler refers, again and again, to those 
three heroes of the brave band of David, 
whose exceptional largeness of devoted affec- 
tion prompted them to rise up and break 
through the host of the Philistines; not in 
the heat of sudden conflict, but in a delib- 
erate and overpowering purpose of bringing 
to their thirsty leader* a refreshing draught 
of pure cold water, from the old home spring 
by the gate of Bethlehem. In all the subse- 
quent record of the brave deeds of one or 
another of the other mighty men of David, 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 2J 

the touching memorial of these great hearts 
of love is added: " Howbeit, he attained not 
to the three." Others had courage, others 
had devotedness; but these three had a 
character for courageous and affectionate 
devotion : hence they stand forever and pre- 
eminently distinguished among the followers 
of David, heroes in a heroic host. 

In order to be the possessor of exceptional 
character, it is not necessary for one to be 
conscious of its possessing. To be one's self 
fearlessly, does not involve the knowledge or 
the feeling that one is unlike everybody else. 
Far less does it involve a show of conscious- 
ness in that possession. As a rule, the man 
of marked superiority in character is not in- 
clined to claim pre-eminence. 

Steele, in The Spectator, emphasizes this 
truth, by saying : " I take it to be the highest 
instance of a noble mind, to bear great quali- 
ties without discovering in a man's behavior 
any consciousness that he is superior to the 
rest of the world. Or, to say it otherwise, it 
is the duty of a great person so to demean 



28 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

himself as that, whatever endowments he 
may have, he may appear to value himself 
upon no qualities but such as any man may 
arrive at." In fact, to one who is himself, 
and who desires to be himself, it seems so 
natural to be just this and nothing different, 
that he is inclined to count his .way of being 
and doing the way which would instinctively 
commend itself to everybody else, as well as 
to himself. 

As Carlyle reminds us, " The healthy know 
not of their health, but only the sick. . . . 
If, in any sphere of man's life, then in the 
moral sphere, as the inmost and most vital 
of all, it is good that there be wholeness; 
that there be unconsciousness, which is the 
evidence of this." The hero is heroic with- 
out thinking of it. The man of integrity 
does right instinctively. " How could I do 
otherwise?" is his response to any word of 
praise for his well-doing. " Wouldn't every- 
body feel and do just as I do?" says the 
person of real character, concerning his or 
her peculiar course of fearless uprightness. 



CHARA CTER-SHO WING. 29 

"Who is there, that, being as I am, would 
go into the temple to save his life?" said 
grand Nehemiah, when counseled to seek 
the sanctuary for his own protection; "I 
will not go in." 

By experience of their contrast with oth- 
ers some come to realize their possession of 
exceptional character. And others again 
have characters of rare power which have 
never yet been called into action, and so into 
prominence. Those who are skilled in char- 
acter reading may discern the pre-eminence 
of these persons, or some peculiar emergency 
may bring their superiority to general notice. 
But, in some instances, their remarkable 
strength of character fails of being known 
to the world, "just because," as Bushnell 
suggests, "the storm they were made for 
has not begun to blow." Character may be 
ready to assert itself, but wait long for its 
opportunity. 

True manhood or true womanhood in a 
very high degree may, in fact, exist in a 
person who little thinks of his or her superi- 



30 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

ority in its possession; and who is as yet 
unrecognized by the world as its remarkable 
possessor. Such a person needs only an 
occasion, to be known and admired of all, 
The rare treasure is there, even though the 
mine has never been opened to sight. 

Confucius, who, from the breadth of his 
view and the practical nature of his teachings, 
might be called the Bacon of Chinese philoso- 
phy, designates, in all of his writings, the 
man of character as "the superior man," in 
contrast with "the mean man," or the average 
man. When asked, by one of his pupils, 
"what constituted the superior man," Con- 
fucius answered : " He acts before he speaks, 
and afterwards speaks according to his ac- 
tions ; " or, in other words, the man of superior 
character does the right thing instinctively 
and naturally. Yet this way, so natural to 
him, is an utterly exceptional way. "Thus 
it is," says Confucius, "that were the superior 
man to speak of his way in all its greatness, 
nothing in the world would be found able 
to embrace it ; and were he to speak of its 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 3 1 

minuteness, nothing in the world would be 
found able to split it." 

Most persons desire to be recognized as 
persons of real character. It is important, 
therefore, for all to understand that real 
character cannot be shown by conformity 
to the common standards of right, or of 
expediency, in one's sphere. To show char- 
acter, one must consent to be distinguished 
from others generally. To be distinguished, 
one must decide for himself what to wear, 
what to eat or drink, how to bear himself 
among and before others, what to believe, 
what to refuse to use, what to refuse to do, 
and what to refuse to believe. Not eccen- 
tricity or mere singularity, but personality, — 
God-reliant, hell-defiant, and man-resistant 
personality, — is the basis of true character. 
It is being one's self, as in the sight of God, 
and as responsible directly to God, that shows 
character, and that secures the recognition of 
character. 

"To his own master he standeth or failed!,'' 
says Paul. To your own Master — and one 



3 2 CHA RA CTER-SHA PING. 

only is your Master — you must stand or fall. 
Emerson but paraphrases and applies this 
apostolic truth when he says: "That which 
each can do best, none but his Maker can 
teach him. . . . Do that which is assigned 
you, and you cannot hope too much, or dare 
too much." And quaint old Henry Vaughan 
presses it home in another way, when he says 
to each of us severally: 

"Seek not the same steps with the crowd; stick 
thou 
To thy sure trot ; a constant, humble mind 
Is both his own joy, and his Maker's too; 
Let folly dust it on, or lag behind. 
A sweet privacy in a right soul 
Outruns the earth, and lines the utmost pole.'* 



III. 

THE COMPOSITION OF OUR 
CHARACTERS. 



Our characters are ourselves. Yet none 
of us, Minerva-like, sprang into being full- 
formed and full-armed for our work in life. 
Individually we are growths rather than crea- 
tions — growths from divinely created germs, 
but nevertheless growths. In the process of 
our growing, various elements have entered 
into our being, and various influences have 
combined to form and shape our characters. 

Every person is himself from the begin- 
ning. At birth and by inheritance he has 
germs of character which are his own pecu- 
liarly. Tendencies, tastes, possibilities, are 
his, which are not another's. Training and 
opportunities can do for him what they 
could not do for the great mass of mankind; 
and on the other hand, the lack of just the 
3 33 



34 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

training and just the opportunities which 
might do so much for him would be far 
more unfortunate in his case than in the case 
of one of any other nature. His limitations 
and his possibilities are all within the range 
of his germinal nature; but that range is a 
very wide one. 

A man can never really be any one but 
himself; but he may be fully developed, well 
rounded, symmetrical, graceful, appearing at 
and doing his best, or he may be dwarfed, 
irregular, repressed, awkward, showing and 
being at his worst. What he might be, by 
the grace of God, depends upon his native 
characteristics. What he is, depends on his 
varied circumstances, associations, compan- 
ionships, experiences. The influences which 
go to make up his character as finally mani- 
fested to the world are many and varied — 
more numerous and diverse than perhaps we 
have been accustomed to suppose. 

There are some things which we see at a 
glance to be influential in shaping and direct- 
ing our characters. The example and in- 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 3 5 

structions of our parents and teachers; the 
circumstances of ease or hardship in which 
we are brought up, the natural surroundings 
of our childhood's home — in city, or country, 
or at the sea-shore; the occupations and the 
companionships of our earlier years; the in- 
tellectual, social, and religious privileges 
which are ours during that period of our 
lives ; these and a host of other things like 
them we are always ready to take into ac- 
count as developing and training agencies, in 
the bringing us to be what we are. 

Beyond all this, we are compelled to admit, 
that a single emergency or catastrophe some- 
times changes a life for its entire history, the 
events of an hour doing more to shape and 
develop the chief characteristics of a nature 
than all the former experiences of that life. 
The blow that leaves a child fatherless or 
motherless, or that takes away husband or 
wife from one whose career until now has 
been that of scarcely undisturbed love and 
joy, does more than bring bitterness of sor- 
row and a sense of desolateness of soul to 



36 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

the bereaved one. It calls into play new 
powers of effort and endurance, and sum- 
mons hitherto unused and perhaps unsus- 
pected energies, to meet responsibilities which 
did not exist before. It seems, in fact, to 
make a new character, through changing the 
proportions of the elements of character. 

The same is true, in a sense, of a sudden 
change in one's circumstances, such as brings 
poverty in the place of affluence, blindness 
or the dependent state of a cripple instead of 
bodily perfectness, or which summons one to 
new and enlarged responsibilities — as of a 
military command in time of war, or of ex- 
alted political station, or of the care and use 
of great wealth received by marriage or in- 
heritance. A character has, indeed, appar- 
ency been transformed by a night of horror 
on a burning steamer, by the shock of a 
plunging train through an open draw-bridge, 
by a terrible experience of calumny or un- 
just suspicion, or the treacherous failure of a 
friend, or by peculiar fear and anxiety in be- 
half of those who are loved dearer than life. 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 37 

All these things enter into the composition of 
character; yet they are not the only — perhaps 
not the most potent — agencies in giving shape 
and play to the distinctive characteristics of 
one's nature. 

The important elements of character-mak- 
ing — or character-shaping — which we are 
most likely to overlook or undervalue are 
the exceptional impressions made upon us 
by casual acquaintances in our earlier life, 
and the quieter influences exerted over us by 
those with whom we are closely associated in 
after years — when our characters are com- 
monly supposed to be fully and finally es- 
tablished. If we could trace back to their 
first exhibit some of the characteristics which 
now mark us most distinctively, we should 
perhaps find that we owe their development, 
not to the steady training in their direction 
received by us at home or in school, but to 
the sudden disclosure of their attractiveness 
in the life of some one whom we were with 
but for a brief season ; or, again, we should 
see that the temptations which try us most 



3 8 CHA RA CTER-SHA PING AND 

severely, and the evil thoughts and imagin- 
ings which have given us greatest trouble in 
life, are the outgrowth of germs planted in our 
minds by persons of whom we have no dis- 
tinct recollections apart from the harm they 
thus did us. 

It may have been an exceptionally confi- 
dent assurance of unwavering faith given ex- 
pression to by a saintly grandmother on her 
occasional visit at our childhood's home, that 
first made vividly real to us the explicit prom- 
ises of revelation, and led us to rest thence- 
forward on eveiy word of God as sure and 
unfailing in spite of all seeming obstacles to 
its performance. Or it may have been a 
single hissing sneer of a Saturday afternoon 
playmate, in reflection on the purity and un- 
selfishness of a person whom we had looked 
up to with admiration and reverence, which 
put the poison of suspicion and doubt, con- 
cerning even the noblest and the best, into 
our mind, to work its pernicious influence for 
all time to come. 

It may have been one sturdy sentence of 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 39 

inspired resolve, spoken by a man of in- 
tensest energy, and of absolutely unflinching 
will, at a time when any ordinary person 
would have deemed all human effort hope- 
less, which made us realize once for all the 
truth of his declaration that "only Omnipo- 
tence can stand in the way of a man of de- 
termined purpose." Or it may have been 
one hour's instruction in sin by a chance 
visitor, almost under our watchful mother's 
eye, that in its consequences was little less 
to us than the partaking of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil was to our first 
parents in Eden. 

A whole family of little folks have been 
influenced to characteristic courtesy of word 
and manner, and of thoughtful attention to 
the interests of others in lesser things and in 
greater, by the coming among them, for only 
a very short stay, of "a gentleman of the old 
school" whose peculiar politeness of bearing 
and phrase uniformly toward all, and always, 
was as pleasing as it was notable. A young 
girl of choice instincts and of fine natural 



40 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

taste has caught an impulse in the direction 
of the adornment and care of her room, and 
of neatness and refinement in all things, by a 
single night with a companion of high cul- 
ture and of lovely spirit — an impulse which 
has carried her forward in both taste and 
spirit far beyond her unconscious tutor. 

Another girl poorly favored at home by 
good examples for her imitation has recog- 
nized in a new acquaintance at a place of 
summer resort an ideal standard of noble 
womanhood toward which she has aspired 
from that hour onward. It is often the one 
lesson of good or evil in early years which 
prompts to the upward struggle for a life- 
time, or necessitates unceasing contest with 
temptation — with perhaps a yielding to it 
again and again — in the following years. 

Nor is it in childhood only that our char- 
acters are shaped and directed by our asso- 
ciates. The best characters are always open 
to improvement, and always in danger of 
deteriorating. Many a husband seems actu- 
ally made over by his wife; and many a wife 



CHARACTER-SHOWING, 41 

seems absolutely another person through her 
husband's influence, after a few years of mar- 
ried life, It is perhaps a friend of our ma- 
turer years whose purity and nobleness, whose 
gentleness and grace, whose spirit of fairness 
and charity, or whose well-defined views on 
every point of ethics where he has a convic- 
tion, impress us with the correctness and 
beauty of his ideal, gradually influence us to 
his ways of thinking, and inspire us to strive 
toward his standards of judgment and feeling. 
Or again, our moral tone is lowered and 
our tastes are vitiated by intimate compan- 
ionship, in social life or in business, with one 
of grosser nature, or of perverted and de- 
based tendencies. Characteristics which had 
been long repressed in our nature come into 
new prominence, and those which had before 
distinguished us drop out of sight. So long 
as we live, our characters are in the formative 
state; and whether we be counted strong or 
weak, our characteristics are continually being 
re-shaped and re-directed by those whom we 
newly come to know and admire, or with 



42 CHAR A CTER-SHA PING. 

whom we are newly brought into intimate 
association. A fresh ideal held before us, a 
purer, nobler, lovelier character coming dis- 
tinctly into our range of observation and 
study, is something to thank God for; for it 
may be an inspiration to us, and a help to- 
ward the better and higher development of 
our characters than we have before realized. 

Meanwhile, we are ourselves the shapers 
and directors of the characters and the char- 
acteristics of some whom we meet or reach. 
This thought ought to give us a sense of 
added responsibility and of added anxiety. 
What we are may settle the question of what 
a multitude of others shall be and shall do. 
Our lives and characters are entering into 
and becoming a part of the lives and char- 
acters of those whom we never knew until 
recently, and their lives and characters are 
entering into and becoming a part of ours. 
The composition of their and our characters 
is still in progress. 



IV. 

THE UNIFYING FACTOR IN 
CHARACTER, 



There is nothing more beautiful or more 
highly prized, in the world of inorganic mat- 
ter, than the crystal. And the crystal owes 
its peculiar form and quality to a single uni- 
fying factor by which unattractive and value- 
less simples" were brought into new and 
enduring relations with one another, and 
were given a structure and an appearance 
which otherwise they could never have pos- 
sessed. It may have been by the addition 
of one more element to the compound, that 
a heterogeneous mixture was resolved into 
crystalline symmetry and solidity. It may 
have been by the unifying factor of heat or 
of cold, of wetness or of dryness, that mole- 
cules of carbon, or silica, or alumina, came 
into that affinity which transformed a dull 

43 



44 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

earthy element into a gem for a royal crown. 
By one process or by another it was the uni- 
fying factor that gave all the other factors, in 
that thing of durability and of admirableness, 
their substantial value. And it is the unify- 
ing factor which is the one thing needful to 
completeness and to practical efficiency in 
every combination of forces in the world of 
matter, of mind, and of morals. 

Many a man who obviously has fine mental 
qualities, and who is possessed of knowledge 
in various branches of learning, shows him- 
self unable to use his intellectual powers and 
attainments to any practical advantage, simply 
because of his lack of the one element of 
mental potency which would bring all the 
other elements of his mind into their proper 
relations, one to another and each to all. 
We are accustomed to say of such a man, 
"He has all kinds of sense i>ut common 
sense;" which is only another way of saying 
that his mind is without the unifying factor 
which is needed to secure the crystallization 
of his powers into the form where they 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 45 

would be at their best, and would show them- 
selves most attractively. Wisdom has, in- 
deed, been called that talent which enables a 
man to use all his other talents ; or, in other 
words, wisdom is the unifying factor in the 
world of intellect. 

In personal character the unifying factor 
is always the chief factor. We speak of the 
necessity of a man's having a purpose in life, 
if he would be at his best, and would make 
the most of himself; and saying this, we 
recognize in the factor of a life purpose the 
unifying factor in the elements of personal 
character. A man may have a fine physique, 
a well-balanced and a well-stored mind, a high 
moral tone, and a choice social position ; but, 
unless he consciously has something to live 
for, all his advantages, natural and acquired, 
fail of arousing his entire abilities, and of 
putting them into their fullest play. Let 
him, however, be once possessed of, or by, 
an absorbing purpose in life, and his faculties 
are unified and energized, so that he is ready 
to be at, and to do, his best. 



46 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

Thus it was that the emergency of our 
Civil War supplied the unifying factor in the 
personal character of many a young man, 
North and South ; so that he who had seemed 
to be wasting his time in aimless living be- 
came quickly a very hero in name and in 
deed. And when a great life-purpose comes 
into the personal character as a unifying 
factor, he who lacks the advantages of many 
another in his personal presence, in his mental 
acquirements, and in his social position, may 
transcend them all — if they are without such 
a unifying factor. It. may be patriotism, it 
may be an aroused filial affection, it may be 
a new sense of love or of friendship, it may 
be an added interest in some line of special 
study, it may be a desire for success in busi- 
ness, that proves the unifying factor in the 
character of an individual; but whatever it 
is, its presence and potency are sure to be 
felt and to be seen prevailingly. 

In man as man, the one unifying factor, 
without which man can never be at his best 
or do his best, is the faith factor. That which 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. A7 

distinguishes man from all the lower orders 
of creation is the ability to recognize the 
unseen and the infinite, and to rest on the 
felt presence of Him who is all and in all, of 
the universe of his creating and controlling. 
In the lack of a personal faith in God as 
his God, no man can be what he ought to 
be, or do what he ought to do. Without 
this faith, a man cannot work or study in 
assured confidence of results; nor can he 
see the past, the present, or the future, in 
the light in which alone all its facts and 
teachings are intelligible and consistent. 
With this faith, a man can stand, as it 
were, at the very centre of the universe, 
and look out over the vast sweep of God's 
providences, in simple confidence that all 
things are working together for his good; 
since his Father orders them all, and he is 
in loving union with God through his union 
by faith with Him who is one with the 
Father. 

Without faith, a man's powers are as the 
earthy elements in their primitive separate- 



48 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

ness ; it is by faith as a unifying factor that 
those elements are crystallized in symmetry 
and in durableness. 

"Without thy presence, wealth are bags of cares; 
Wisdom, but folly; joy, disquiet, sadness: 
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares ; 
Pleasure's but pain, and mirth but pleasing mad- 
ness. 
Without thee, Lord, things be not what they be, 
Nor have their being, when compared with 
thee. 

" In having all things, and not thee, what have I ? 
Not having thee, what have my labors got ? 
Let me enjoy but thee, what farther crave I ? 
And having thee alone, what have I not ? 

I wish nor sea, nor land ; nor would I be 
Possessed of heaven, heaven unpossessed of 
thee." 

" One thing thou lackest yet," said Jesus 
to a young man who had wealth and station 
and capacity and knowledge, and a loving 
and a lovable spirit. The one thing there 
lacking was the unifying factor which alone 
could bring all the other factors of that 
young man's personality into their right 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 49 

relations to one another, and to the forces 
at work in the universe of God. Without 
that unifying factor the favored young man 
was at a disadvantage, in spite of all his 
advantages. And no advantages can com- 
pensate any man, young or old, for the lack 
of the unifying factor which shall enable 
him to recognize and to occupy his place 
in the Divine plan, and to use all his facul- 
ties and attainments in their proper order 
and measure. 

We have need to beware lest, with all our 
advantages and attainments, we lack the 
unifying factor which shall give the highest 
effectiveness to our powers in their best 
exercise. It is not the number of our facul- 
ties, nor the variety of our acquirements, 
but rather our ability to use them severally 
and collectively as they should be used, that 
is the measure of our capacity in our sphere 
of being and doing. Without the unifying 
factor, all other factors will be incomplete 
and insufficient, in our case, as in the case of 
all others. 

4 



50 CHARACTER-SHAPING. 

Nor need the unifying factor ever be lack- 
ing to us. God, who gives us all that we 
have of good, will not withhold that which 
is essential to our best use of all which we 
have from him. It is only when we culpably 
bury one talent of the two or of the five 
talents which God has entrusted to us, think- 
ing that we are doing measurably well by 
our use of the remainder, that we need fear 
to suffer from the lack of the unifying talent 
which can make the other talents as pro- 
ductive as they ought to be. The unifying 
talent is one of the talents, the use of which 
God proffers to every one of us. We can 
bury it, or we can improve it — and take the 
consequences accordingly. 



V. 

THE MORAL BASIS OF PRACTICAL 
EFFICIENCY. 



Everybody recognizes the value of moral- 
ity — in the sphere of morals ; but not every- 
body recognizes the surpassing value of 
morality in the varied spheres of practical 
efficiency in every-day life. Yet the moral 
basis is as truly a source of power in the 
laborer who pounds paving-stones in the 
street, as in the minister who expounds gos- 
pel truth in the pulpit. 

No one gives hearty credence to a preacher 
of morals who is himself known as immoral. 
No one feels that such a man is fit to be a 
preacher. Indeed, there is hardly any sugges- 
tion of St. Paul more widely accepted by men 
of the world, as peculiarly appropriate to the 
instructor of morals, than St. Paul's pungent 
questions : " Thou that preachest a man should 

5i 



5 2 CHAR A CTER-SHA PING A ND 

not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest 
a man should not commit adultery, dost thou 
commit adultery?" Nor does any one want 
a man in any line of practical performance, 
who lacks morality at the pivotal point of his 
personal duty just there. A band of robbers 
would want an honest treasurer. And a con- 
clave of assassins would want to be sure of 
the unimpeachable fidelity of every accom- 
plice. So all the way up and down the ranks 
of busy life. The results of morality at one 
point or another are deemed indispensable 
in every instance. But the common error is 
in supposing that a moral basis is not requi- 
site for practical efficiency in any and every 
sphere of duty. 

In personal combat, — which in olden time 
was counted an appeal to God for a decision 
between the contestants, — this truth, that the 
moral status of the man has most to do with 
his power, even in a struggle where brute 
force might seem the chiefest element of 
strength, has always been recognized by 
keen-eyed observers of the progress of the 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 5 3 

ages. Shakespeare makes King Henry say : 

n What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted ! 
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just; 
And he but naked, though locked up in steel, 
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." 

And Tennyson's Sir Galahad, with his high 
personal purpose, in quest of the Holy Grail, 
cries out: 

"My good blade carves the casques of men, 
My tough lance thrusteth sure ; 
My strength is as the strength of ten, 
Because my heart is pure." 

In his arraignment of Warren Hastings, 
Edmund Burke said: "I never knew a man 
who was bad fit for service that was good. 
There is always some disqualifying ingre- 
dient, mixing and spoiling the compound. 
The man seems paralytic on that side, his 
muscles there have lost their very tone and 
character — they cannot move. In short, the 
accomplishment of anything good is a physi- 
cal impossibility for such a man." And this 
is only another way of saying, what Solomon 



54 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

said, in his wisest mood, of the average man 
for his day and for all days: "As he thinketh 
in his heart, so is he;" as he is in his inner 
self, in his moral nature, so he will be in his 
outer self, in his practical exhibit of self — in 
conduct. Again, it is what a greater than 
Solomon said: "The good man out of the 
good treasure of his heart bringeth forth 
that which is good; and the evil man out of 
the evil treasure bringeth forth that which 
is evil." 

A moral purpose, a controlling moral con- 
viction, gives added force to the words and 
to the actions of any man in any sphere. 
It is not that he can have no power without 
it. It is not that he can never appear to an 
advantage with its lack. But it is, that its 
possession gives an increased potency to his 
best work, and to his poorer; and that it 
secures a trustworthiness and a uniformity 
to his endeavors, not otherwise attainable. 
You feel the moral purpose of a writer, or a 
speaker, in behalf of any cause, anywhere. 
It thrills in his writings, it sounds in his 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 55 

spoken appeals. You cannot have an abid- 
ing confidence in a lawyer or a physician 
whose morals you distrust. Unless you can 
believe in him as a man, you cannot unfail- 
ingly believe the words of his counsel. And 
who wants an assistant, or a servant, who 
cannot be left without watching? 

It is not even possible for a man to act 
always on the conviction that "honesty is 
the best policy/' unless there is a moral 
basis to his conviction. There are many 
times when honesty does not seem to be 
politic; when, indeed, the right course seems 
to be the more dangerous course; and then 
it requires faith in order to believe in the 
policy, in the prudence, in the safety, of 
doing just right — and taking the risks. A 
moral basis is essential to constancy in keep- 
ing up a fair show before the world; for the 
temptation is, sooner or later, very strong, 
to defy even appearances in the hope of a 
proffered gain. Unless, therefore, the man 
is sound inside, his unsoundness is in con- 
stant danger of working out to the surface. 



$6 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

It is the basis, not the superstructure, of 
practical efficiency, that is found in the moral 
status of the man. It is because the man is 
an honest man at heart, that he is sure to be 
a trustworthy treasurer; not that he does 
well because he consents to be honest while 
acting as a treasurer. It is because the man 
lives for a high purpose, that he will show 
his superior character in every act and rela- 
tion of life; not, that he sees an advantage 
in well-doing where he is for the time being, 
and therefore adheres to the precepts of 
morality in that sphere. It is not the slavish 
obedience to the letter of the law, in the 
immediate realm of his service; but it is 
that love of right which is the fulfilling of 
the law, which gives a man practical effec- 
tiveness, wherever he is, in proportion to his 
moral purpose of life. 

A moral purpose in life shows itself in a 
higher standard of morals all the way through. 
The lack of a moral purpose is indicated in 
little things and in larger. And the lack of 
a moral purpose, however indicated, points 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 57 

to a corresponding lack of practical efficiency. 
The young man who goes to balls, to the the- 
ater, or to the whist club, who drinks wine or 
beer, or who smokes cigarettes, is not worth 
so much, hour by hour, or day by day, to 
his employer, for the posting of accounts, for 
the selling of goods, for the setting of types, 
for the handling of a surveyor's chain, or for 
any other work in city, or in country, or on 
the sea, as if he had a higher moral standard, 
and conformed to it by denying himself an 
indulgence in these questionable perform- 
ances. And wise employers are recognizing 
this fact on every side. Many a young man 
fails of employment, or of promotion, when 
he seems otherwise well fitted for usefulness, 
simply because his conduct in such matters 
shows him to be lacking in that high moral 
purpose which is the surest basis of all prac- 
tical efficiency in life. 

It would be well if more young men real- 
ized that in fitting themselves for the business 
of life — fitting themselves, in college, in the 
counting-room, in the factory, or on the farm, 



5 8 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING. 

— they have chief need to secure a moral 
basis of conduct, and that that basis of con- 
duct can be secured only in character. Char- 
acter indicates itself in little things; but it 
tells in all things. 



VI. 

PERSONAL CHARACTER IN THE 
WORLD'S HISTORY. 



The history of the world is the history of 
the words and the works and the influence of 
individuals of exceptional personal character. 
Exceptional personal character is, in fact, 
chiefest among the manifest forces in the 
world's progress. 

God, as the source of all power, works in 
this world through the agency of one man 
at a time. " He putteth down one, and set- 
teth up another!' He does not put down 
one, and set up a great many others in that 
one's place; but he puts down one, and sets 
up another one. And the relative measure 
of the one put down and of the one set up 
is a measure of character; for character is 
always the measure of a man's power and of 
a man's possibilities in God's service. 

59 



60 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

God has given to the world, in the Bible, 
a record of his dealings with the world from 
its beginning; and that record is, in a sense, 
little more than the record of one man of 
marked character after another, in his rela- 
tions to God and to his fellow-men. For a 
while, the whole world pivots on the charac- 
ter of the first man Adam; then, again, on 
the character of courageous Noah; then, on 
the character of the faith-filled Abraham; 
then, on the character of the godly Moses ; 
and so on, through the record of Joshua, of 
Gideon, of Samson, of Samuel, of David, of 
Elijah, of Daniel, of Nehemiah. Yet later, 
in the New Testament record, apart from the 
story of the One of matchless character, it is 
the character of John the Baptist, of Peter the 
apostle, of John the evangelist; of Paul the 
missionary, which shapes the destiny of the 
nations for then and for thenceforward. 

In outside history, it is much the same. 
The individual character of Menes, of Amen- 
emhat I., of Thotmes III., of Rameses II., 
impresses the life and decides the course of 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 6 1 

Egypt, and of the world beyond it, for a 
series of centuries. In the far East, it is the 
character of Kedor-la-'omer, of Sargon, of 
Assur-bani-pal, of Nebuchadnezzar, that de- 
cides the bounds, and settles the fate, of em- 
pires, for successive generations. Alexander 
is reared in the home of Philip of Macedon. 
As soon as his character has time to develop 
and to assert itself, the whole face of the 
world is changed thereby, never again to find 
its old form or to lose entirely the impress 
of that young man's character. And so on, 
in the storied character of Caesar, of Alfred, 
of Charlemagne, of Peter the Great, of Sala- 
din, of Cromwell, of Napoleon, of Washing- 
ton. The one man of exceptional character 
is the force of forces in the world's move- 
ments of his period. 

In the field of thought and feeling, it is the 
same as in the field of action. The character 
of Zoroaster, of Confucius, of Gautama, of Soc- 
rates, of Plato, of Aristotle, of Muhammad, 
of Descartes, of Bacon, swayed successively 
the minds and hearts of countless multi- 



62 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

tudes. The personality of Homer, of Vir- 
gil, of Shakespeare, of Bunyan, still trembles 
in the hearts of myriads. 

Practically all Christian men are ranged 
to-day, as religious thinkers and workers, as, 
in a sense, the followers of one man or of 
another man, and as the evidences and mani- 
festations of that man's exceptional character. 
They even call themselves Lutherans, or 
Calvinists, or Arminians, or Wesleyans, or 
Mennonites, or Socinians, or Swedenborgians. 
Or, if they do not admit that they are dis- 
playing the peculiar power of some one man 
who started them in their present course, all 
intelligent students of history know that they 
were thus started by one man. It was Hilde- 
brand who grasped the power of the papacy. 
It was Loyola who created Jesuitism. It was 
Henry the Eighth who made the English 
Church a new reality; and so all along the 
religious front. 

Even in the freer countries and under the 
more popular governments of modern times, 
the exceptional personal character of one man 



CHARA CTER-SHO WING. 63 

at a time is likely to sway the power of the 
nation, and he tg be recognized as its more 
than ruler. It is not commonly the imme- 
diate head, but it is the man who is more of 
a man — a man of more marked and excep- 
tional character — than he who is nominally 
at the head of affairs, who is spoken of as the 
leader of the national life for the time being. 

For example, in considering the history 
of England, for the past century or more, 
we think and speak of the times of Wal- 
pole, of Pitt, of North, of Peel, of Palmers- 
ton, of Disraeli, and of Gladstone, rather 
than of the reigning sovereigns successively. 
And America has been divided in opinion 
from the foundation of its government by the 
views of Jefferson and Hamilton; and this 
not so much because of the nature of those 
opinions, or the official station of the men 
holding them, as through the intense per- 
sonality of those two men of character as 
leaders in their generation. Calhounism and 
Garrisonism are spoken of as the extreme 
views of the two sides in the final great con- 



64 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

flict of the opposing sections of the country. 
And these are only illustrations of the sweep 
of affairs in every sphere. 

"Every true man," says Emerson, "is a 
cause, a country, and an age; requires infi- 
nite spaces and numbers and time fully to ac- 
complish his design ; — and posterity seem to 
follow his steps as a train of clients. A man 
Caesar is born, and for ages after we have a 
Roman Empire. . . . And all history resolves 
itself very easily into the biography of a few 
stout and earnest persons." Froude, speaking 
of the aroused and consecrated man of char- 
acter, who is fairly devoted to the right, says : 
" In such a condition, a man becomes mag- 
netic. There are epidemics of nobleness, as 
well as epidemics of disease; and he infects 
others with his own enthusiasm. . . . One takes 
courage from another; one supports another; 
communities form themselves [after the type 
of such a man] with higher principles of ac- 
tion, and purer intellectual beliefs." And 
Browning summarizes all the lessons of his- 
tory on this point, in his pregnant words : 



CHARA CTER-SHO WING. 6$ 

" 'Tis in the advance of individual minds 
That the slow crowd should ground their ex- 
pectation, 
Eventually to follow ; — as the sea 
Waits ages in its bed, till some one wave 
Of all the multitudinous mass extends 
The empire of the whole, some feet, perhaps, 
Over the strip of sand, which could confine 
Its fellows so long time ; thenceforth the rest, 
E'en the meanest, hurry in at once, 
And so much is clear gained." 

Nor is it only with the man of exalted sta- 
tion, or with the man of intellectual genius, 
that character is a force of widely pervasive 
power. Any man of exceptional character 
anywhere is a man among men, is a man 
above men, is a man of force in his sphere; 
and every man's sphere is, in a sense, the 
sphere of the universe. Mr. Moody has said, 
that " the world has yet to see the power of one 
man wholly consecrated to Christ;" of one 
character fully devoted to its highest possibili- 
ties. But the world has had many a gleam 
of the truth in this direction. That humble 
monk of the desert, who, wellnigh fifteen 
5 



66 CHA RA CTER-SHAPING A ND 

centuries ago, put an end to the brutal, blood- 
thirsty combats in the Roman Colosseum, by 
the simple assertion of his own pre-eminent 
personality, against the power of combatants, 
of spectators, and of imperial court and ma- 
jesty, was such a gleam of the truth. No 
one knew him until then. His very name is 
still in question. Some call him Telemachus, 
and some Alymachus. 

He was a rude, bare-footed, pilgrim-monk, 
from distant Asia. Aroused by the crime of 
those murderous games at Rome, he set him- 
self to stay them. Unaided and alone, he 
swung himself into the vast arena, when the 
passions of the mighty throng were at their 
height, and called on those who were locked 
in the death-struggle to be at peace. Pro- 
testing in the name of God against such bar- 
baric sports, he was quickly cut down, and 
trampled to death, at the cry of the infuriated 
populace. But his heroic exhibit of pre- 
eminent character was not in vain. His ac- 
tion closed the Colosseum as the theater of 
gladiatorial conflicts; and so once more was 



CHARA CTER-SHO WING. 67 

exceptional personal character proved to be 
a potent force in the world. 

Another gleam of this truth was in the 
character of Peter the hermit; a bare-footed, 
bare-headed, poor old man, with coarse gar- 
ment and a girdle of rope, striding an ass, 
and moving up and down Europe, to stir 
kings and nobles and the common people to 
espouse the cause of the Crusades, for which 
he pleaded. His exceptional personal charac- 
ter was one of the world's forces in his day. 

To come down nearer to our own time for 
an illustration of the truth that sheer personal 
character is a mighty force in the world, apart 
from the occupancy of exalted station, or the 
possession of great genius, there was Gran- 
ville Sharp and his life-work. Successively 
an apprentice to a linen-draper, a law student, 
and a clerk in the Government Ordnance 
Office, he owed nothing to his position, but 
everything to his exceptional character, — in 
determination, in studiousness, and in per- 
sistency. Being told, in a discussion concern- 
ing the New Testament, that his ignorance of 



68 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

Greek made him incompetent to judge the 
force of the arguments for and against the 
divinity of Jesus, he at once set himself to 
master that language; and his work on the 
Greek Article (which " led to the more elabo- 
rate treatises of Middleton and Wordsworth ") 
became a new starting-point in New Testa- 
ment exegesis. 

The case of a negro, claimed as a slave in 
the streets of London, aroused the sympathy 
and enlisted the character of Granville Sharp. 
With all the courts in the realm against him, 
he started out to secure a decision that no 
man could be a slave on British soil. Fight- 
ing his case up to the highest tribunal, in 
spite of all odds, and with no seeming ad- 
vantages, he overturned all former judicial 
decisions, wrested from the eminent Lord 
Chief-Justice Mansfield an admission of pre- 
vious error, and secured the promulgation of 
the decision he had sought, — that no person 
could be held as a slave on the soil of Great 
Britain. Nor did he stop there. His en- 
deavors led to the work, in the same direc- 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 69 

tion, of Clarkson and Wilberforce and Buxton 
and Brougham; and that work went on until 
slavery was swept from the British posses- 
sions, and afterwards from America. And 
now every freedman or descendant of a slave, 
in our own land as in our mother-country, 
owes his liberty, instrumentally, to the char- 
acter of Granville Sharp. 

And ever among the great men of excep- 
tional personal character have stood the great 
women of exceptional personal character, 
equally potent in their day and sphere. So 
it was with Hatasoo, Deborah, the Queen of 
Sheba, Jezebel, Cleopatra, Zenobia, Joan of 
Arc, Queen Elizabeth, Madame de Stael, 
Mary Somerville, Elizabeth Fry, Mary Lyon, 
Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 
Florence Nightingale, Dorothea Dix, Clara 
Barton, and many another woman in many 
another realm and sphere. Each of these 
was in her time, and thenceforward, a power 
for good or for ill in the world's forces. 

It was a woman of character — however that 
character may have failed of its highest di- 



JO CHA RA CTER-SHA PING. 

rection — whose song of longing for herself, 
as for every true woman of character, was : 

" Oh, may I join the choir invisible 
Of those immortal dead who live again 
In minds made better by their presence : live 
In pulses stirred to generosity ; 
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
For miserable aims that end with self; 
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like 

stars, 
And with their mild persistence urge man's 

search 
To vaster issues. 

So to live is heaven : 
To make undying music in the world, 
Breathing as beauteous order that controls 
With growing sway the growing life of man.*' 

As it has been, so it is, and so it must be. 
" For none of us liveth to himself, and none 
dieth to himself." 

" No life 
Can be pure in its purpose, and strong in its strife, 
And all life not be purer and stronger thereby." 



VII. 

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KNO VY- 
ING THE PERSON AND KNOW- 
ING THE CHARACTER. 



Every person has a character; but not 
every person's character, as a character, is 
known to all who know the person as a per- 
son. To know the person as a person is one 
thing; it is a very simple thing. To know 
the character as a character is quite another 
thing; it is, in a sense, as simple a thing as 
the knowing of a person as a person, but it 
involves a great deal more than that in its 
scope and in its consequences; and it is a 
great deal rarer as a measure of knowledge 
concerning men. 

The character as a character is what a man 
stands for in the sight of Omniscience; it is 
What will be disclosed in the day of universal 
disclosure, when the man will be known by 

7i 



72 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING AND 

all as he has been and as he is. The person 
as a person is what the man appears to be, 
in his ordinary exhibit of his characteristics 
before his fellows. The " person" is, in its 
etymology, the actor's mask, the large- 
mouthed cover of the face through which 
an old-time actor was accustomed to speak 
in representation of his assumed "character" 
for the hour. The acted "character" was 
indicated by the words sounded through 
{per and sonare, "to sound through") the 
personal mouth-piece. The real character 
of the man within may be rightly disclosed 
by the. ordinary external speech and conduct 
of the person who is seen and heard; and, 
again, it may not be. Hence the vast dif- 
ference between knowing the character and 
knowing the person. 

With mankind as it is, the ordinary method 
of arriving at an estimate of another's char- 
acter is by observing his personal bearing 
and conduct, and drawing one's inferences 
accordingly. But wherever one is limited 
to this means of judgment, his estimates of 



CHARACTER-SHOWING, 73 

character in the person observed are con- 
stantly open to revision. An unexpected 
exhibit of conduct in a new direction by 
that person necessitates a change of opinion 
concerning the character back of this con- 
duct. Nothing is finally settled in such a 
case. Moreover, as all bearing and conduct 
can be judged fairly only in the light of the 
character which is back of them, there can 
never be a full understanding of the relation of 
these to character in any particular instance, 
while the character itself is still in question. 

It follows, therefore, as a rule, that those 
who are known only as persons are never 
known at all ; nor is the estimate of them by 
those who know them in this way a conclu- 
sive one. They are always on trial, doubted 
or trusted tentatively, according to the con- 
fiding or the suspicious natures of those who 
observe them. They may not be under spe- 
cial suspicion to-day; to-morrow they may 
have none to trust them. And so it must 
be, where the persons only are known, and 
the characters are not. 



74 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

A knowledge of character may be, within 
certain limits, instinctive; it may be — it more 
commonly is — a progressive attainment; at 
its highest and best, it is intuitive. A child 
often sees the character through the person, 
and is instantly won or is repelled in spite of 
appearances which would seem to prompt to 
the opposite course. Most persons, who do 
come to a knowledge of character in others 
(and a great many never do), arrive at their 
conclusion by a slow series of successive 
stages of proof. 

To begin with, they know the difference 
between a person and a character, and they 
are watching for the signs of character. At 
last their minds are made up as to the char- 
acter which is back of the person they are 
studying, and they rest on their conviction 
accordingly. In yet rarer instances, he who 
possesses character himself, and has had 
much experience in the observation of char- 
acter in others, recognizes instantly the char- 
acter in another whom he meets, and — if the 
recognition be mutual — the two characters 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 7 5 

are in accord as soon as the two persons are 
face to face. In such a case, there is no 
stage of intermediate — any more than of 
subsequent — questioning or doubt. Mutual 
confidence is unlimited from first to last; nor 
is the instant decision in such a case a hasty 
one : it is the result of an intuitive knowledge 
in the premises. 

Conduct, when judged by itself, may 
rightly, or wrongly, indicate the character 
which is back of it. Conduct is the seen 
effect of an unseen cause; but conduct is 
always capable of more than one interpre- 
tation, as a result of the spirit and motive 
and intention which were its prompting. 
Hence he who would infer the character 
from the conduct, may be in error as to the 
cause of that which he looks at as an effect. 
But character — individual character — is never 
inconsistent with itself. A man may, in a 
given case, do that which is unworthy of 
himself, but he cannot do that which is not 
in some way consistent with his real char- 
acter. The conduct which is an effect of 



76 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

that character must be the conduct of which 
that character could naturally be the cause. 

Hence, he who knows the character which 
is back of the conduct which he observes, is 
never influenced to revise his judgment of 
the character, through any new and un- 
looked-for disclosure in the conduct. He 
may, indeed, find that his knowledge was 
before but partial of the possible phases of 
conduct in the exhibit of such a character 
as this; but he will not surrender his abso- 
lute knowledge of the cause, because of his 
enlarged understanding of the effects from 
such a. cause. 

It is a rare privilege, and a privilege as 
precious as it is rare, to know a character 
which can be honored and admired and 
trusted unswervingly. This knowledge of 
the character, as distinct from a mere knowl- 
edge of the person, it is which is at the basis 
of every purest and noblest friendship. He 
who knows his friend's character, never has 
any doubt because of his friend's conduct. 
He may revise his opinions as to what his 



CHA RA CTER-SHO WING. 77 

friend would do y but through all changes of 
this sort he knows w T hat his friend is; and 
his loyalty to his friend is because of what 
that friend is, rather than because of what 
that friend does. And all the added expe- 
riences in such a friendship are but added 
proofs of its sure foundation. 

This knowledge of the character, rather 
than of the person, it is, moreover, which 
underlies all true faith in God as God. To 
have a firm conviction of God's personality 
as it is, is not to be compared with the hav- 
ing a knowledge of God's character as it is. 
He who judges God by God's dealings with 
him, is always liable to doubt, or even to 
rebel, when God's dealings with him are 
very different from what he had hoped for, 
or had expected. But he who knows God's 
character as it is, can never have doubt, nor 
be rebellious, even in the moment of great- 
est surprise, or of sorest disappointment. 
" Though he slay me, yet will I trust in 
him," is the unvarying spirit of every such 
believer. 



?8 CHAR A CTER-SHA PING, 

To know an admirable character, and to 
love it, is to become, as it were, a partaker 
of its admirableness; for there is inspiration 
and very life in the sympathy which is an 
outgrowth of such knowledge and such love. 
Therefore it is that we ought to reach out 
after a knowledge of the character of Him 
whose character is Love. And this is the 
purport of the prayer of the Apostle when 
he prays "that Christ may dwell in your 
hearts through faith; to the end that ye, 
being rooted and grounded in love, may be 
strong to apprehend with all the saints what 
is the breadth and length and height and 
depth, and to knozv the love of Christ [not 
merely to know Christ the Person, but to 
know the character of Christ] which passeth 
knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the 
fullness of God." 



VIII. 

ALWAYS IN THE BALANCES. 



If a man only knew just when he was to 
pass under close scrutiny, and have a final 
judgment made up by his fellow-men con- 
cerning his character and ability and spirit 
and worth, how careful he would be to appear 
at that time at his very best in every partic- 
ular! But the trouble is, there is no warn- 
ing given of these testing times. They come 
unexpectedly. In fact, they are continual. 
There is a sense in which a man may be said 
to be always in the balances, being accurately 
weighed to the extremest atom, and liable to 
have any one step up and read clearly his 
precise moral and intellectual weight on the 
standard scale beam. 

" But know this," says our Lord/' that if the 
master of the house had known in what watch 
the thief was coming, he would have watched, 

79 



80 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

and would not have suffered his house to be 
broken through." But that is not the cus- 
tom among thieves — to send a postal card in 
advance, mentioning the hour of their in- 
tended call, and asking the householder to be 
on the lookout for them. So there is always 
danger from thieves, to be guarded against. 
Likewise, there is always danger that others 
will come without warning to judge us, and to 
carry their judgment of us away with them. 

If the young lady had known that the gen- 
tleman in whom she is so much interested 
would call this morning, and would actually 
meet her, unannounced, in the hall, she cer- 
tainly would not have been in so untidy and 
slovenly a dress at this hour. If the young 
bank clerk had understood that the cashier 
would be passing through that side street 
just now, he would not have been coming out 
of that " sample room" with a cigar in his 
mouth. If the business man had supposed 
that he was to fall in the street to-day, and 
break his leg, and be carried into a drug- 
store to have it examined before a gaping 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 8 1 

crowd, he would perhaps have taken a bath 
last evening, and have put on clean stockings 
this morning. 

If the members of the family in their up- 
stairs sitting-room realized how distinctly 
their voices are heard by the waiting caller 
in the parlor below, there is at least one 
person there who would be more cautious 
to refrain from unlovely and complaining 
words. If the young married couple were 
aware how thin these hotel partitions are, 
and who occupies the next room to them 
this Sunday afternoon, they would never 
think of being so outspoken in their quarrel- 
ing, and so bitter in their unkind reproaches 
of each other. If the railway ticket agent 
even thought that it was one of the directors 
of his company who is asking questions of 
him at the window, he would be a degree less 
insolent or surly in his answers. 

If the prominent church-member aw 7 ay from 
home, in a foreign country, suspected that a 
strange face opposite him at the hotel table 
was that of a man knowing him well, and 



82 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

sure to report him in his own community, he 
might not be so free to order wine at his 
dinner, or to talk aloud with his companions 
of his delight in the fountains in Versailles — 
which play only on Sundays, and to visit 
which must have been in violation of his early 
Puritan traditions. If the clergyman off on 
a summer vacation, sitting in unprofessional 
dress on a hotel piazza, chatting with a group 
of guests, had any idea that one of that group 
was a leading man in an important church 
now looking for a pastor, and that that man 
was at this very moment seeking to learn the 
true spiritual depth and earnestness of that 
Christian minister, he might be readier to 
withhold a laugh over some irreverent play 
upon Bible words, or to rebuke by a frown 
some broad and indelicate allusion by one or 
another of the party. 

If, and if, and if, — if all knew the time of 
their visitation for a judgment, there would 
be a great deal more than there is of smooth- 
ing down the dress, and pushing back the 
hair, and tightening up the cravat, and put- 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 83 

ting on of smiles, and lowering the voice to 
gentle utterances, and posing for observation, 
and walking circumspectly before the judges. 
But the times and the seasons for these judg- 
ments cannot be foreknown. 

It is said, that at one time a large manu- 
facturing firm in America secured a most 
remunerative contract from the Russian Gov- 
ernment, which would have gone to its imme- 
diate rival in business but for the discourtesy 
which the agent of the Russian Government 
received at the other establishment, when he 
called, one afternoon, to make inquiries about 
the matter in hand without being known as 
so important a purchaser. Larger interests 
than this have hinged on an interview of an 
hour, when the person with most at stake had 
no idea that his testing time had come. 

It is almost forty years ago that an inci- 
dent in the political history of our country, 
known to but few, illustrated this truth with 
unusual power. It was not long prior to a 
presidential election. The contest in one of 
the great political parties was so sharp be- 



84 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

tween three or four of the prominent candi- 
dates for the nomination, that it was easily 
foreseen that no one of these could probably 
secure the requisite two-thirds vote in the 
approaching convention. Then there was a 
conference at the national capitol, among the 
shrewdest of the party leaders, to select some 
new man to be sprung upon the convention, 
at the fitting moment, as a compromise can- 
didate. This conference settled down on two 
names from New England, and three repre- 
sentative gentlemen were requested to visit 
these men quietly, and decide which of the 
two was to be preferred in the emergency. 
Their report was to settle the question. They 
went on their mission. 

As if casually in his city, these gentlemen 
called on one of these two possible candi- 
dates, and deliberately proceeded to judge 
him, without, of course, his suspicion of their 
purpose. Just think of it! In an hour it 
was to be decided whether or not he was fit 
to be President of the United States, with a 
place in history, and with almost infinite pos- 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 8 5 

sibilities of good or evil. He was unsus- 
pectingly lifted into the scales, and there 
weighed. The scales were turned southward, 
and eastward, and westward, that the light 
might strike the beam from all directions. 
He was clearly of short weight. The mental 
verdict of those gentlemen, as they left that 
man at the close of the interview, was : " Thou 
art weighed in the balances, and art found 
wanting/' The other man of the two named 
was preferred. He was nominated. He was 
elected. His place is in history. 

So it may be with any of you — in a degree. 
The present hour may be the most impor- 
tant in your life, as settling the public esti- 
mate of you, or as deciding your destiny for 
all time; and this without any knowledge on 
your part that such is the crisis. The only 
safe way is to be always at full weight, ready 
for the balances. It is never safe to speak 
unkindly or ill-naturedly, with the idea that 
nobody hears you except those who already 
know your spirit and your common modes 
of expression. It is never safe to be un- 



86 CHARACTER-SHAPING. 

cleanly in person, untidy in dress, impure in 
speech, or irreverent in word or action, under 
the impression that your course so far will 
not be made known to the world. It is never 
safe to visit any place of questionable resort, 
thinking that your presence there will not be 
recognized and commented on by those who 
above all others are most likely to condemn 
you therefor. It is never safe to count on the 
probable concealment of anything done by 
you that you ought to be ashamed of were 
the fact with all its circumstances known to 
those whose opinion you would value. 

It is never safe to look upon the present 
hour as any other than the hour of final and 
irrevocable judgment concerning yourself, 
your character, and your modes of conduct. 
Living in view of this truth, you may be pre- 
pared always, not only for man's judgment, 
but for the Lord's ; for with the true-hearted 
disciple of Jesus it is a very small thing that 
he should be judged of man's judgment, for 
he that judgeth him is the Lord. 



IX. 

METHODS OF CHARACTER 
JUDGING. 



Conduct is the expression of character. 
Conduct is commonly the basis of an indi- 
vidual judgment of character. But conduct 
is always capable of two opposing estimates. 
It may even be said that no single action, 
nor any one course of action, will command 
the same judgment from all observers; that 
every line of conduct is liable to be judged 
as indicative of worth or of unworth of char- 
acter, of nobleness or of ignobleness of per- 
sonality, according as it is viewed in the 
light of the observer's habit of mind toward 
the right, or again of his sympathy with or 
antagonism to the person whom it represents. 

A young king goes among his people in 
the infected districts in a time of pestilence, 
enduring personal discomforts, braving the 

&7 



88 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

danger of death, and speaking words of lov- 
ing cheer to the panic-stricken. One ob- 
server says: "How noble! There's royalty 
in nature, as well as royalty in station !" 
Another says : " He is shrewd. His risk is 
no greater than if he were a physician ; but 
his gain is tremendous. He is simply look- 
ing out for his kingly interests." A candi- 
date for the Presidency makes a liberal con- 
tribution in behalf of a needy community, 
or he speaks warm words in behalf of a 
worthy cause, or he goes out of his way to 
do a personal deed of ministry to a family 
or to an individual requiring such assistance. 
A political supporter sees in this an evidence 
of his candidate's personal worth. A politi- 
cal opponent sees in it an unworthy attempt 
to influence votes by a show of well-doing. 
A railroad accident occurs. A young physi- 
cian who is on the train, or who lives in the 
vicinity, springs to the help of victims of the 
disaster, and exerts himself untiringly in their 
behalf, with no prospect of a fee for rendered 
service. One looker-on says that that physi- 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 89 

cian has acted on the prompting of a gen- 
erous impulse. Another says that the 
physician's prime motive was a good adver- 
tising of his professional services. 

So in every line of personal endeavor, 
where one's conduct is made a basis of 
reputation, or is looked at as an indication 
of personal character, on the part of one 
who is prominently before the public. More 
than one man of national eminence in our 
country has even hesitated, on an occasion, 
to make a confession of his personal faith 
by openly connecting himself with the 
Church of Christ, lest this step, which some 
would commend most heartily, should be 
deemed by others the selfish prompting of a 
desire for a reputation as a " Christian states- 
man." Nor is there any course of conduct 
which may not, with some plausibility, be 
looked upon by different observers as indica- 
tive of different personal characters. 

In the less prominent judgments of char- 
acter in the sphere of purely private life, 
there is a similar liability to opposing esti- 



go CHA RA CTER-SHA PING AND 

mates of conduct as an exponent of dis- 
tinctive personality. A person shows us 
some special attention, expresses a peculiar 
regard for us, evidences a desire to be of 
service to us and to ours. We know that 
his course may be the exhibit of an unsel- 
fish spirit; while again self-seeking may be 
at the bottom of it. We are therefore in- 
clined to judge his conduct by our opinion 
of his character, rather than to judge his 
character by our opinion of his conduct; 
and our opinion of his character is likely, 
in such a case, to be influenced by our feel- 
ings, rather than by our reason. 

Again, we may confide to two equally 
intelligent persons the story of some suc- 
cessful struggle of our own with a tempta- 
tion which was suddenly sprung upon us. 
One listener is surprised at that weakness 
of our nature which made us temptable at 
such a point, and we stand the lower in his 
esteem in consequence. The other listener 
honors us for having resisted the temptation; 
and, in consequence, he gives us credit for a 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING, 9 1 

nobler character than he had hitherto recog- 
nized. This difference in judgment may be 
a result of different characteristics in the 
two persons judging us; again, it may result 
from a different feeling toward us, as influ- 
encing a perception of the best side of our 
nature, or of the worst. In either case the 
difference is not in the recognition of the 
essential facts involved, but in the deduction 
from those facts. 

Conduct is an exponent of character; but, 
again, character is an exponent of conduct. 
We must ordinarily infer what a man's char- 
acter is by what is indicated in his conduct. 
But, again, when we know what a man's 
character is, we may fairly infer the nature 
and meaning of his conduct. When a man 
is loved and trusted because of one's con- 
viction of his admirable and trustworthy 
character, a favorable construction is sure to 
be put upon all of his conduct by the one 
who loves and trusts him. As Emerson 
says of his feeling concerning a friend thus 
rested on : "I rely on him as on myself; if 



92 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

he did thus or thus [whatever his conduct 
was], I knew it was right.'' 

When, on the contrary, a man has, either 
with or without sufficient cause, come to be 
counted untrustworthy, his best doing may 
seem ill doing, because of the supposed ill 
character back of the doing. It is of the 
unfavorable judging by one thus newly set 
in opposition, that Emerson says again : 

"Though thou wert the loveliest 
Form the soul had ever dressed, 
Thou shalt seem, in each reply, 
A vixen to his altered eye ; 
Thy softest pleadings seem too bold, 
Thy praying lute will seem to scold ; 
Though thou keep the straightest road, 
Yet thou errest far and broad." 

So it comes to pass that character is judged 
by conduct, and again that character is 
judged in spite of conduct. And there is a 
degree of wisdom in both these methods of 
judging, — a degree of wisdom, and a degree 
of folly also. 

The real measure of a man's character is 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 93 

what he is at his best, in the direction of his 
idealward striving. It is what he seeks to 
be, rather than what he is. At his best, 
every man is below his highest ideal; and 
below his best there is in every man that 
which is quite unworthy of him, and which 
he is persistently struggling away from. 
Traces of a man's low r er nature are likely 
to show themselves in the peculiar tempta- 
tions w T hich try him; and if he refuses to 
resist these temptations, his character must 
be judged unfavorably, according to its in- 
dulged weaknesses, and not according to 
some exceptional impulse of good away 
from them. If, however, a man bravely 
battles his temptations, and, by Divine help, 
makes progress against them, he ought to 
be judged favorably, according to his upward 
outreachings, and not according to his lowest 
starting-point of struggle. And he whose 
life is one of struggle has more of character 
than he who is unused to struggle. 

It is not easy to discern the true measure 
of character in any man. No man can 



94 CHARACTER-SHAPING. 

rightly estimate another's high ideal, if he 
lacks a high ideal of his own. No man is 
likely to look at the best, and away from the 
worst, in another's character, unless he has 
a measure of sympathy with the conflict 
which the elements of that character are 
sure to precipitate. Hence it is rare that 
we judge or are judged correctly, in the ordi- 
nary estimates of conduct as an exponent of 
character, or of character as an exponent 
of conduct. 

There is comfort in this thought to one 
whose character is unfairly judged, as indi- 
cated by characteristics which he is con- 
stantly and consciously striving against. 
There is a warning in this thought to those 
who would judge another's character, as 
indicated by some speech or some action 
which may, after all, merely give a gleam 
of the struggle within, which is steadily 
developing a character deserving of their 
admiring honor. 



X. 

AN INSTANT JUDGMENT NOT 
ALWAYS HASTY. 



Hastiness of spirit, in estimates, in judg- 
ments, and in decisions, is universally and 
properly condemned. " He that is hasty of 
spirit exalteth folly/' and " Seest thou a man 
that is hasty in his words? there is more 
hope of a fool than of him," are precepts of 
divinely inspired wisdom. " Haste is of the 
Devil," says the book of Muhammad. " Judge 
not according to appearance, but judge right- 
eous judgment," is the counsel of One wiser 
than Solomon. And John Locke sums up 
the convictions of the ages on this point, 
when he says: "He that judges without in- 
forming himself to the utmost that he is 
capable, cannot acquit himself of judging 
amiss." Yet an estimate, a judgment, a de- 
cision, that is instant, is not always hasty. 

95 



g6 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

Indeed, an instant judgment is often truer and 
better than a judgment delayed. 

Haste is undue quickness; it is precipi- 
tancy. But the delay of an instant may be 
too great delay; and when that is the case, 
instant action is not hasty action. If a man 
finds himself on a railroad track, just in front 
of a flying express train, his instant decision 
to jump from that track is not a hasty decis- 
ion. If he sees a blind man taking the one 
step that would carry him over a precipice, 
he will not be hasty in an instant effort to 
hold back that blind man from death. So, 
again, an instant decision to refuse to do 
wrong when tempted, is not a hasty decision. 
Here, indeed, it often is that hesitation is in 
itself a sin. And similarly, in every sphere 
of being, there are occasions when the decis- 
ion which is instant is better than that which 
is deliberated. 

An instant judgment which is not a hasty 
one, obviously presupposes sufficient knowl- 
edge, or training, or experience, to form a 
correct basis of judgment. Only on such a 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 97 

basis is it than an instant judgment, as an 
instinctive judgment, can be better than a de- 
liberate judgment — with its liability to warn- 
ings through imperfect reasoning processes. 
Many a man has no trouble in spelling his 
words as he writes, until he comes to a break 
in a word where he has to ask himself how 
to spell a familiar word deliberately, and then 
he is completely at a loss. But this is where 
a man's habit of correct spelling has come 
to be instinctive rather than deliberate. A 
skilled off-hand marksman is able to make a 
better shot without aiming than with it. But 
he could never do this if his eye and hand 
had not been trained by long practice to act 
together instinctively in the direction of his 
undivided purpose. 

A coin expert at the Government mint or 
treasury is sometimes capable of instinctively 
detecting a counterfeit coin by a single glance 
at it, or by its simple handling, even where 
its too close comparison with a genuine coin, 
or where an attempt at deliberation, would 
cause him to hesitate in his decision; because 



98 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

the test of the coin by his familiar intrinsic 
standard of values is surer than any extrinsic 
test of other comparisons. This, however, 
would be possible only with a man of long 
experience in coin-testing. And so in every 
other sphere; the attainments of a life-time 
may be evidenced in the correct judgments of 
an instant. 

Peculiarly is this true in the exercise of a 
high critical faculty in estimates and in judg- 
ments. All that a man has ever known or 
done or felt may be concentered in an in- 
stant's seeing or hearing, critically, in the 
realm of his highest personal attainments. 
" The first glance at a picture is the crucial 
one," said Tintoretto; but only a true artist 
has power to give unfailingly such a crucial 
first glance at a picture. A master musician's 
skilled ear, and only his, might decide cor- 
rectly upon the possibilities in the voice of a 
young singer, from hearing a single note of 
exceptional clearness and power. 

An experienced physician could, perhaps, 
know more of a patient's true condition, in 



CHA RA CTER-SHO WING. 99 

the sphere of that physician's specialty, from 
a moment's sight of the patient's face, than 
a physician of less experience and ability 
could learn through a careful diagnosis; and 
there would be no mere chance in this supe- 
rior discernment. Similarly, a lawyer, or a 
clergyman, or an editor, of rare skill and ex- 
perience, might be able to estimate correctly, 
from a single sentence, the measure of value 
in a writing submitted to his examination, in 
the field of his own profession. The instant 
decision in every such case is simply by the 
focusing of the rays of light from every 
direction on a single point of observation, 
through the object-glass of an instinctive 
judging process. 

To judge correctly of character on the in- 
stant, without judging hastily, is perhaps the 
highest attainment in correct instantaneous 
judgment. Yet important decisions have 
hinged, and rightly so, on instant judgments 
of character, which were not hasty judg- 
ments. A little child often judges counte- 
nances as evidencing character, instantly and 



I OO CHAR A CTER-SHAPING AND 

instinctively, without being warped by partial 
and imperfect reasonings. And such instinc- 
tive judgments of a very young child are 
commonly more trustworthy than an older 
child's deliberated judgments. But there is 
an instinctive judging of character at a glance, 
which is on a higher plane than a child's 
judgments. 

A man of peculiar strength and intensity 
of individual character, and of wide and va- 
ried experience in his personal life, who has 
seen much of his fellows, and who has been 
called, as a duty, to observe character and 
characteristics in others, may have come to 
a degree of critical and discerning skill in 
the instant judgment of others, correspond- 
ing in its way to the skill of the coin expert 
or of the artist. His judgment in every in- 
stance is based on a long series of experi- 
ences and observations; and the resulting 
decision is not hasty, in being instant. Illus- 
trations of this truth are found in the instant 
and unerring judgments of the greatest 
commanders, and of men of the highest 



CHA RA CTER-SHO WING. I O I 

administrative capacity, in their choice of 
subordinates and helpers in the line of their 
mission. And other illustrations are to be 
found in the less prominent spheres of per- 
sonal confidences and attachments. 

Character is very real; more real, in fact, 
than is a metal coin or a painted canvas. 
Character will show itself in its reality, in 
expression of face, in personal bearing, and 
through all covers of attempted disguise. 
And character will make itself felt, even 
more really than it can show itself to the 
eye. He who himself has character will not 
fail to recognize character in another. The 
more exceptionally real is the peculiar char- 
acter of the observer, the surer he is to 
perceive instantly a similar peculiarity of 
exceptional character, or its special lack, in 
one who is brought unexpectedly to his 
notice. This it is which has made two per- 
sons friends from their first meeting; or which, 
again, has caused two persons to feel, in- 
stantly on their first meeting, that they could 
never be in agreement. 



1 02 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING. 

Because an instant unfavorable judgment 
of us may be a correct judgment, if we de- 
serve an unfavorable judgment, our only safe- 
guard against an instant unfavorable yet 
correct judgment of ourselves is in our being 
worthy of a favorable judgment. It is of no 
use for us to complain that an unfavorable 
judgment of us seems a hasty judgment, if, 
in fact, that judgment of us is a correct one. 

If, on the other hand, we are to be correct 
in our instant judgment of others, we must be 
sure that we have the character, the experi- 
ence, the training, and the knowledge, which 
alone can enable us to form an instant judg- 
ment of others which is not a hasty judg- 
ment. In matters, however, of practical 
morals, where we already know what is 
right, we need never fear that an instant 
judgment against the wrong is a hasty judg- 
ment. An instant judgment in every such 
case is better than deliberation in the hope of 
a wiser judgment. 



XI. 

THE TREMULOUSNESS OF TRUE 
COURAGE. 



A stolid indifference to danger is not a 
sign of true courage. He who never knew 
what fear is, cannot know what is bravery. 
The courageous man faces danger with a full 
understanding of the risks involved. He 
goes forward, not without fears, but in spite 
of them. Indeed, a sense of danger is ob- 
viously essential to an intelligent and dis- 
creet braving of danger. 

There are men who do not know what 
fear is; but they are of lesser value, even for 
fighting purposes. Theirs is simply a brutal 
recklessness. They are as ready as a bull- 
dog to rush into combat with an enemy, and 
are hardly more serviceable than he. Hav- 
ing no sensitiveness to peril, they have no 

hesitation to dare the greatest odds. As 

103 



1 04 CHA RA CTER-SHA PING A ND 

soldiers, they would be worthless on picket, 
as scouts, on the skirmish line, or wherever 
else there is need of caution and judgment. 
Their place is only with the moving battalion 
under watch and orders. They cannot be 
trusted to their own direction. Courageous 
soldiers are ever those who are keenly alive 
to a sense of peril, and who have a struggle 
to control their fears in order that they may 
do their duty regardless of all perceived or 
imagined dangers. The bravest officer you 
ever met would tell you not only that he 
trembled when first he went under fire, but 
that when he goes under fire he always trem- 
bles, although now his trembling is inside 
instead of on the surface, and he is enabled 
by practice to conceal its appearance. And 
the bravest men, when put to the test, are 
commonly those who most doubted their 
courage until it was tried. The man who has 
no fear that he shall fail in an emergency, is 
likely to have nothing but fear when the 
emergency is fairly upon him. 

It is the same in civil life as in military. 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 05 

The public speaker, for example, who never 
doubts that he can interest and influence an 
audience, has little power to move an audi- 
ence. Recognizing no danger of failure, he 
does not guard against it. His lack of sen- 
sitiveness is contagious. On the other hand, 
he who realizes that he may come short of 
his opportunity is all the more determined 
in his purpose of attaining to it. He ap- 
proaches it with the tremulousness of true 
courage. And in that very tremulousness is 
power. What more quickly moves an audi- 
ence to emotion than the quivering tones 
of an earnest speaker, who is evidently 
doing his utmost to control his struggling 
emotions ? 

"Why is it," asks a veteran, "that after 
all these years I find myself trembling at the 
thought of standing before an audience to 
speak or to lead in prayer, as if the whole 
thing were utterly new to me, instead of 
being an almost every-day custom of life?" 
The answer to this question is very simple : 
"You recognize a danger that is real. You 



1 06 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING AND 

may fail to fill your place wisely. You are 
properly sensitive to your peril. Your 
trembling is so far an indication of your 
power and of your probable success. Your 
experience enables you to conceal your em- 
barrassment, but not to be without it." 

The most eloquent and effective of living 
orators would, to-day, tell you that they never 
stand before an audience but with more or 
less of trepidation. A man may, it is true, 
talk cold logic without tremulousness, and 
may appeal to the reasoning faculties of his 
hearers in the self-possession of indifference ; 
but if he would reach the heart and sway 
the emotions of those whom he addresses, 
he must himself be moved; and to be moved 
a man must tremble. Unless a speaker has 
a struggle with his emotions, his audience is 
not likely to have one with theirs. 

Who never trembles rarely triumphs. At 
the best, such a man's success is on a low 
plane. The poet or the artist who never 
fears that his work will fall below his ideal 
has no very lofty ideal. The lawyer who 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 07 

undertakes the advocacy of any new cause 
of great importance without a sense of danger 
to be overcome for his clients, is more indif- 
ferent than courageous. If a physician feels 
that a very sick patient is out of danger be- 
cause in his hands, his patient's danger is by 
that very fact increased. One of the most 
distinguished of our American surgeons has 
said, that with his greater experience in his 
profession he is more and more conscious of 
a trepidation to be controlled in approaching 
every difficult operation, in fear of the con- 
sequences of possible failure. An increase 
of reputation for skill or ability is an increase 
of danger to him who has it. It is one of the 
elements of his risk in each new effort. 

On the part of friends there is commonly 
sensitiveness to the opinions and feelings of 
each other just in proportion as those friends 
admit the possibility of a misunderstanding 
resulting in an estrangement, and shrink from 
the consequences of being at variance. We 
are, as a rule, least careful about our conduct 
before those whom we value least, or with 



1 08 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING A ND 

whom we have least thought of differing. 
What matters it, we think, if we are ap- 
proved or condemned by these strangers, or 
these common-place acquaintances ? We are 
free and careless in their presence, and per- 
haps appear all the better from our fearless 
independence; but our best powers are then 
no more in exercise than is our courage. 
There is no call for either. 

When, however, we are with those whose 
good opinion is valued by us as beyond all 
price, and of whose favor we are not yet 
absolutely sure, how keenly alive we are to 
the possible impression of our every word 
and action! What if we should be misun- 
derstood! What if we should fail where 
success is so greatly to be desired! Our 
trepidation causes us for the time to feel an 
embarrassment, and perhaps to show an 
awkwardness, quite unknown to us in another 
presence. 

This is as natural as the fact that a man 
who can walk with a firm step, and grace- 
fully, along a low curbstone of a few inches 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 09 

in width, or who would not ask more space 
than that for his feet on the sidewalk, would 
tremble and move awkwardly on the edge 
of a house-roof, or in the attempt to cross a 
yawning chasm on a single narrow stringer, 
where one misstep would be fatal to him. 
The sense of danger produces the embar- 
rassment and awkwardness. To remove 
these there is wanted — not a loss of the 
tremulousness, but its fuller control. So 
with the sensitive friends: to put them at 
ease with each other, there is required a 
control of their sensitiveness, rather than 
its absence. 

There is a great deal of difference between 
tremulousness and hesitation. The coura- 
geous soldier is tremulous with a nervous 
sense of the danger he must brave; but he 
does not hesitate in his purpose of braving 
it. The effective speaker, the fine artist, the 
skilful professional man, the earnest seeker 
after friendship, trembles in the thought of a 
risk which he has no doubt about taking. 
" He that w r avereth is like a wave of the sea 



1 1 CHA RA CTER-SHA PING A ND 

driven with the wind and tossed. Let not 
that man think.that he shall receive anything 
of the Lord." But tremulousness in feeling 
is not a wavering in purpose. 

The most constant thing in all the realm 
of matter is the magnetic needle; yet what 
is more tremulous than the mariner's com- 
pass? "True as the needle to the pole," is 
the very synonym of absolute fidelity; but 
that needle is instinct with motion, and quiv- 
ers as if it could not be depended on for 
another second. A touch of the hand jars 
it. Even a breath of air causes it to tremble. 
It vibrates with every change of its sur- 
roundings. But its ultimate direction is 
never in doubt. It is so centered on a 
northward purpose that it will not be held 
back from its arctic devotion. Its quivering 
discloses its sense of danger, lest it should 
be drawn away from that which it seeks 
determinedly, and toward which it presses 
with the tremulousness of true courage. 
How different this from the fickleness of 
" a wave of the sea driven with the wind and 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 1 1 

tossed/' having no fixed purpose of direc- 
tion; turned northward or southward with 
the change of wind or tide. 

As in the sphere of human conduct and 
human friendships, so in the highest spiritual 
sphere. The thought of the terrible conse- 
quences involved in a failure to secure his 
loving favor, causes many a longing soul to 
shrink and tremble as it turns toward the 
Lord Jesus in a desire to find acceptance 
with him. The same thought causes even 
the courageous and heroic Paul to disclose 
the tremulousness of anxiety, as he tells of 
his struggle to be faithful, and declares: 
"But I keep under my body, and bring it 
into subjection, lest that by any means, when 
I have preached to others, I myself should 
be a castaway." He who recognizes no 
spiritual danger from which only the Lord 
Jesus can rescue and guard him, knows 
nothing of true Christian courage. He who 
has never trembled for his soul, is a stranger 
to the victory of faith. 

But victory is attainable in the struggle 



1 1 2 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING. 

for the divine favor, as indeed it is in the 
struggle for a human friendship. When we 
are no longer in doubt of a human friend's 
favor, and have no fear of giving or taking 
offense in intercourse with that friend, there 
is no longer a call there for courage with 
its inevitable tremulousness. The dreaded 
danger is removed. Confidence has taken 
its place. Victory is won. So, when the 
disciple of Jesus realizes that, just as he is, 
he is accepted and loved by an omnipotent 
Saviour; that with all his unworthiness he 
is chosen and cherished by one who is able 
to keep him from falling or failing, — then it 
is that the tremulousness of courage in seek- 
ing salvation gives place to the restfulness of 
loving confidence in its possession; and that 
the truth is realized, that " there is no fear in 
love;" for "perfect love casteth out fear." 



XII. 
TEMPTED TO GIVE UP. 



Every once in a while we hear of some 
man who has failed in the struggle of life; 
of one who has broken down in character; 
of one who has fallen into open sin ; of one 
who has abandoned himself to drink ; or of 
one who has put an end to his wretched life. 
In some cases we wonder at this disclosure 
of weakness: it is wholly unlooked for in 
that direction. In other cases it is hardly a 
surprise to us: "Poor fellow!" we say, "he 
did have a hard time of it. Life was every 
way a burden to him.' , 

Whether, however, these obvious failures 
seem natural or strange, their aggregate 
number is but small in comparison with the 
host of those who, while they still remain 
true, are tempted to give up, and who, per- 
haps, totter along the very verge of despair 
8 113 



1 1 4 CHARA CTER-SHAPING AND 

without being suspected of indecision or of 
faintness of heart and purpose. There are 
few, if any, of those who accomplish much 
in the world, or who have possibilities of 
high achievement, who do not waver at times 
in their efforts at right doing, and ask them- 
selves whether there is, after all, any real use 
in persevering longer in this incessant and 
now apparently hopeless warfare. ' 

It was after all the mighty wonders wrought 
by Moses as the man of God, in the leading 
of the children of Israel out of bondage, 
and after his being with the Lord face to face 
in the holy mountain, that Moses was tempted 
to give up his struggle and his charge, and 
that his cry to God was : " I am not able to 
bear all this people alone, because it is too 
heavy for me. And if thou deal thus with 
me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I 
have found favor in thy sight; and let me 
not see my wretchedness." Did anybody 
ever feel that way since Moses ? It was when 
Elijah, the fearless prophet, had met and van- 
quished the four hundred and fifty prophets 



CHARACTER-SHO WING. 1 1 5 

of Baal, that he was tempted to give up in 
despair, and that lying under the retem-tree 
in the desert, "he requested for himself that 
he might die; and said, It is enough; now, 
O Lord, take away my life; for I am not bet- 
ter than my fathers." Does not that sound 
like nineteenth-century talk ? 

Paul, the brave-hearted, unflinching soldier 
of Christ, declared that he kept himself from 
becoming a castaway only by an incessant 
struggle; and that his body would yet have 
the mastery over him, unless he pounded it 
mercilessly. Who can hope to hold on and 
hold up easier than St. Paul? Napoleon 
Bonaparte in his earlier soldier-life was at the 
very point of suicide, in despair of accom- 
plishing anything worthy of his endeavors; 
and he was kept back from self-destruction 
by a kind and cheering word from a stranger, 
in the hour when he was thus tempted to give 
up. No true soldier ever went again and 
again into battle without being, at one time 
or another, tempted to hold back, and to fail 
of fidelity to duty and honor in the emer- 



1 1 CHA RA CTER-SHA PING AND 

gency. And no good man or woman ever 
passed through the ordinary battles of every- 
day life without being now and then tempted 
to abandon the fight, whatever might be the 
consequences to one's self or to others. 

There have been little children whose hearts 
so ached over their unsuccessful efforts to be 
right and to do right, or who so keenly felt 
the injustice of those who misunderstood and 
wrongly blamed them, that they have gone 
away by themselves and put an end to their 
sad lives — just as Moses and Elijah were 
seemingly half ready to ! And it is because 
every child is in danger of being thus tempted 
to give up, that Paul, who knew all about 
this feeling, writes by inspiration: " Fathers 
[and he might have added "mothers"]-, pro- 
voke not your children, that they be not dis- 
couraged ;" — beware how you overtax or 
unjustly suspect your little ones, who have 
all they can do at the best to keep from giv- 
ing out in the struggle which young and old 
are called to in this life. 

There are wives and mothers also, — not 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 1 7 

merely the wives of faithless, dissolute hus- 
bands, and the mothers of wild and wayward 
sons, but wives and mothers who are counted 
by the world as peculiarly favored in their 
family relations, — who in the exercise of 
almost divine patience in their doing and en- 
during and loving and praying, are sometimes 
tempted to give up in despair over their ina- 
bility to meet fully the expectations and de- 
sires of the one whom they would die for, or 
over their failure to develop in the child of 
their heart all the noble purposes and all the 
tender affections which enter into their ideal 
of a true boy's character. 

There are temptations to give up — in the 
best friend's effort at proving his friendship 
by unselfish and persistent services and for- 
bearances; in the most faithful teacher's en- 
deavor to bring forward the backward pupil, 
or to control and direct the abilities of the 
brilliant but inconstant one; in the finest 
scholar's struggle for the mastery of his 
studies, and of his own mental powers; in 
the noblest poor man's unremitting contest 



1 1 8 CHARA CTER-SHAPING AND 

with ever-recurring want. The proudest 
heart is tempted to show weakness under 
the repeated calls on it to the smothering of 
love and inclination, at the behest of duty. 
The gentlest and most submissive spirit, 
which has borne sorrow upon sorrow un- 
complainingly, comes at last, in some hour of 
new and unlooked-for bereavement, to moan 
aloud with the Psalmist: "Surely in vain 
have I cleansed my heart, and washed my 
hands in innocency ; for all the day long have 
I been plagued, and chastened every morn- 
ing." And the world would stand aghast if 
it knew how many of those who are counted 
purest and strongest, and freest from all pur- 
pose or thought of evil, are continually in a 
conscious struggle, tempted to give up; and 
whose heart-cry at one minute is, "Lord! 
hold up my goings in thy paths, that my 
footsteps slip not!" and at the next it is: 

" No ! I this conflict longer will not wage, — 
The conflict duty claims ; the giant task. 
Thy spells, O virtue, never can assuage 
The heart's wild fire! This offering do not ask. 



CHA RA CTER-SHO WING. 1 1 9 

u True, I have sworn — a solemn vow have sworn — 
That I myself will curb the self within ; 
Yet take the wreath, no more it shall be worn ; — 
Take back thy wreath, and leave me free to sin." 

There are both warnings and encourage- 
ments in the fact that some of the best men 
and women in the world — even those fore- 
most in the record of Bible heroes — have 
at times been tempted to give up in their life 
struggle. " These things happened unto them 
by way of example; and they were written 
for our admonition, upon whom the ends of 
the ages are come. Wherefore let him that 
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." 
If Moses and Elijah were discouraged and 
ready to die in despair, do not be so restful in 
your courage as to make you count yourself 
beyond all danger of proving faithless in an 
emergency. If Peter could show cowardice 
when he was surest of being brave and true, 
and if Paul held his own only by an inces- 
sant fight with himself, do not think that you 
are one whose fidelity and uprightness can 
never be in question. 



1 20 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING AND 

Understand, too, that your greatest danger 
is not already in the past, and that your vic- 
tory is not yet complete. Not he who has 
battled bravely for ten years, for twenty years, 
or for forty years, but " he that endureth to 
the end, the same shall be saved." No man 
can live wholly on his former achievements. 
It is what he does next, rather than what he 
has done up to the present time, that tests a 
man's character, and shapes the public esti- 
mate of him. If you are to win in your life 
struggle, you must hold firm when again you 
are tempted to give up — as you surely will 
be. Everything is lost if you do not perse- 
vere unto the end. 

Moreover, when one or another whom you 
had counted above suspicion of wrong or of 
weakness falls or fails before your eyes, in- 
stead of wondering over his unaccountable 
defection, give God thanks that so many who 
have been tempted to give up are still stand- 
ing firm. And beware lest you discourage 
unduly any in your circle of love or of influ- 
ence who are — all unknown to you and to 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 121 

the world about them — even now on the very 
verge of despondency. Speak words of cheer 
and help to your possibly heart-burdened 
mother or wife, sister or brother, child or 
friend, pastor or teacher, scholar or servant. 
" Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm 
the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a 
fearful heart, Be strong, fear not;" and you 
may keep these tottering ones from falling, 
and in the end their triumph shall be yours. 

A bright side of this truth is, that some of 
the best work in the world has been done, 
and is doing, by men and women who were 
tempted to give up — and did not. Moses did 
grand service after he thought there was 
nothing left for him but to die: so did Elijah. 
And it is the wives and the mothers who per- 
severe in spite of their almost overwhelming 
discouragement, who do most for their hus- 
bands and children in the long run. The 
friend who will not give up, when everything 
but friendship tempts him to abandon the 
field, is the one who is surest to win the re- 
ward of the unfailing and finally appreciated 



1 22 CHARA CTER-SHAPING. 

friend. He who battles right on for the wreath 
of victory, through repeated temptations to 
give up the struggle, is he who sooner or 
later comes to " reckon that the sufferings of 
this present time are not worthy to be com- 
pared with the glory which shall be revealed 
to usward," 



XIII. 

HEROISM IN UNFOUGHT BATTLES. 



All the world admires the recognized hero. 
As Carlyle says, "Hero-worship exists, has 
existed, and will forever exist, universally 
among mankind." But in order to be rec- 
ognized as a hero, a man must have the 
opportunity of displaying heroism, and this 
opportunity can only exist with some possi- 
bility of high achievement. A man may be 
a hero, however, without his heroism being 
made known to the world; and there are 
those, indeed, whose characters show the 
results of heroic being and braving, while as 
yet no opportunity has been given for the 
display of their heroism. 

The primary idea of heroism is an excep- 
tional manliness, a manliness which partakes 
of the divine element. The heroes of classic 

literature were god-like men, whether in war 

123 



124 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

or in peace; for it is a mistake to suppose 
that the ancient Greeks looked upon the field 
of battle as the only place for the display of 
heroism. Homer applied the term "hero" 
to men who had nothing to do with war or 
command; as "the minstrel Demodocus," 
"the herald Mulius," and the best of "the 
unwarlike Phaeacian people." As an old-time 
English writer defined the ancient idea of 
heroism : " Tho' heroical be properly under- 
stood of demi-gods, as of Hercules and 
^Eneas, whose parents were said to be, the 
one celestial, the other mortal; yet it is also 
transferred to those, who for their greatness 
of mind came near to God." In fact, there 
has never been a time among men, when 
Whittier's view of heroism had not its recog- 
nition by truest souls : 

" Dream not of helm and harness 
The sign of valor true ; 
Peace hath higher tests of manhood 
Than battle ever knew." 

Sir Philip Sidney is more widely recog- 
nized as the hero, in his self-denying proffer 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 2 5 

of the longed-for draught of wine on the 
field of Zutphen, than in any exploit of his 
knightly life before he lay there dying. And 
Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale have 
a higher meed of praise in the world's ap- 
proval to-day, than Jeanne d'Arc. Yet even 
these heroes of peaceful achievement had 
their opportunities of high and well-known 
doing, without which their heroism would 
never have been recognized by the world at 
large. Their real heroism, however, was in 
their real spirit and conduct; not in the pub- 
licity of their performance and in the world's 
recognition of their claim to admiration and 
honor. So far, all will agree. It is self-ap- 
parent that heroism may be evidenced where 
the world cannot see the proof; but it is not 
so commonly realized, that much of the truest 
heroism is in conflicts that are never met, 
and in battles that are never fought. 

Every soldier knows that the truest tests 
of a soldier's courage are not those occur- 
rences which stand out most prominently in 
the stories of warfare. It is commonly harder 



126 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

to overcome one's shrinking from danger 
while the choice of action is still before one, 
than to keep up when the unavoidable battle 
is fairly in progress. George MacDonald 
says truly: "The direst foe of courage is 
the fear itself, not the object of it; and the 
man who can overcome his own terror is a 
hero and more. ,, The chief struggle of a 
soldier is before the battle, not during it. 
When he has decided to enter the fight 
unflinchingly, his heroic bearing and doing 
follow almost as a matter of course; 

" For courage mounteth with occasion." 

During the last year of our civil war, a 
veteran brigade, which had lost heavily in a 
week of battles, returned to its camp after its 
seven days' absence ; and, a little before mid- 
night, its remaining officers and men lay 
down for their long-delayed rest. Hardly 
had they fallen asleep, when they were started 
up by a summons to fall into line, and to make 
a hurried march of four or five hours for the 
purpose of assaulting, at daybreak, a line of 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 1 27 

the enemy's works which they knew to be 
practically impregnable. Then it was that, 
in weakness of body and in torpor of mind, 
a half-awake officer, formally excused by the 
surgeon from immediate active duty, had to 
meet the question, all alone in the gloom of 
the night, whether he would remain there at 
rest, or rouse up and use his little remnant of 
life-strength in the effort to cheer his men, as 
he went on with them to certain death. 

It was heroic in that officer to decide to 
rise up and move forward at that hour; none 
the less heroic because of the fact that, be- 
fore the enemy's stronghold was reached, the 
order for its assault was countermanded, and 
the world never knew of the occasion which 
tested those soldiers' heroism. And that in- 
cident was but one of a thousand similar 
occurrences. Officers were even promoted 
in rank, during that war, for volunteering to 
lead a forlorn-hope which was not led. Their 
heroism was thus recognized without the 
opportunity of its display. 

Nor is it in the soldier-life alone that hero- 



1 28 CHARA CTER-SHAPING AND 

ism is called out where no conflict appears. 
There was a tender-hearted, loving child in 
a New England home, to whom life was all 
gladness and joy. He loved as he was loved, 
and he was worthy of all the love which was 
given to him. One day, as he was starting 
out for a ride with his parents, he asked them 
where they were going; and they told him 
that they were going to take him up to the 
new cemetery, a beautiful city of the dead 
by the river's bank, beyond the town. His 
bright face grew shadowed, and his little lips 
quivered, so that his father asked him, "Why, 
Willy, don't you want to go there? " Quietly 
the trustful answer came back, " Yes, if you 
think it best, papa." And they rode on 
silently, in through the broad gateway; on, 
along the lovely tree-shaded and turf- bor- 
dered avenues. 

That bright boy seemed strangely quiet, 
clinging in love to his mother's side, and 
looking up from time to time with a face that 
seemed never so beautiful in its restful confi- 
dence. As they finally passed out again from 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 2g 

the gateway they had entered, the dear child 
drew a breath of relief, and looking up in 
new surprise asked: "Why, am I going back 
with you again ? " " Of course you are. Why 
should you doubt it?" "Why, I thought 
that when they took little children to the 
cemetery, they left them there/' said that 
hero-child. 

And then it was found that with a child's 
imperfect knowledge that dear boy had sup- 
posed he was being taken, at the call of God, 
and by the parents whom he loved and trusted, 
to be buried in the place which he had heard 
of only as a place of burial. And all by 
himself he had had the struggle with him- 
self, and had proved the victor. Like Isaac 
of old, he was a hero in a terrible battle which 
was never fought. "Yes, yes," you say; "but 
that was a child's foolish fancy, a mere fear 
of his imagining." Ay, and the most des- 
perate of all struggles are our struggles with 
dangers that are unreal. The sorest conflicts 
for which we must make preparation are con- 
flicts which do not occur; and the battles 
9 



1 30 CHARA CTER-SHAPING AND 

which we anticipate with direst dread are 
battles which are never fought. In all the 
course of our earthly life, 

" Present fears 
Are less than horrible imaginings." 

There are calls to heroism in the every-day 
life of every man or woman, although not 
every man or woman proves heroic in the 
hour of testing. And by far the greater num- 
ber of these calls are of one's own imagin- 
ing; but they are only all the more real for 
that. A business man sees just ahead of him 
an emergency where strict honesty would 
prove his financial ruin, but where a slight de- 
parture from the right would save him from 
disaster and disgrace. If he is heroic, he 
decides to brave the worst; and then the 
worst does not come. Only God knows 
what a struggle that man had in — or for 
—the battle which was not fought. A woman 
in her quiet home life faces a danger to her- 
self or to her loved ones which seems inev- 
itable, but which would only be hastened by 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 131 

its open recognition ; and in her heroism she 
prepares to meet the crisis without a word. 
Her every smile is then heroic; yet her hero- 
ism is never suspected by others, because the 
anticipated catastrophe is averted. Heroic 
decisions of unselfishness, and of great sac- 
rifice, and of courageous fidelity to principle, 
which never show themselves outside of the 
hero's own soul, are multiplied in common 
life beyond the thought of the most zealous 
hero-worshipers. 

Although such heroism as this is not itself 
made known to the world, its results are 
manifest. No man or woman can be heroic 
without being uplifted thereby, without bear- 
ing in the outer being the signs of the hero- 
soul within. Whenever we see the deepening 
lines and the radiant glow of a countenance 
that shows a growing nobleness and an in- 
creasing beauty of character, where the per- 
sonal life seems unruffled by any conflict, we 
may be sure that there has been in that life 
more than one promptly answered call to 
heroism in unfought battles. And when we 



1 3 2 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING. 

wonder why it is that our imaginings bring 
us face to face with so many dangers which 
do not exist, and compel us, so often, to pre- 
pare for battles which are never fought, it 
should encourage us to consider, that, if we 
meet heroically those conflicts which have no 
existence save in our own fears and fancies, 
we are, in a sense, gaining the strength and 
doing the work of God's heroes; for all that 
God asks of any servant of his is that he be 
faithful and heroic in that servant's sphere. 

" There is no end to the sky, 

And the stars are everywhere, 
And time is eternity, 

And the here is over there. 
For the common deeds of the common day 
Are ringing bells in the far-away.*' 



XIV. 

COMPOSITE MENTAL 
PHOTOGRAPHY. 



Popular interest has been awakened in 
what is known as " composite photography;" 
a process whereby the outlines of several 
different faces are superimposed one upon 
another, so that a picture is obtained which 
represents the features and expression which 
are common to all the faces making up this 
composition ; while that which is individual 
to any one of the faces is lost sight of. The 
purpose of this experiment is the ascertain- 
ing of the typical face of the class of persons 
thus combined; and, like most experiments in 
their earlier employing, it is a means of bring- 
ing out truth and of leading into error. 

It was Mr. Francis Galton, the eminent 
English anthropologist, the writer on the 
human faculties in their development and in 

i33 



I 34 CHARA CTER-SHAPING AND 

their transmission by heredity, who first em- 
phasized the value of an experiment of this 
nature; and he was reinforced in his views 
by Mr. Herbert Spencer, the sociological 
philosopher. It was the idea of both of 
these scholars, that by this means a typical 
average of a family, or of a race, could be 
ascertained far better than by any averaging 
of different direct measurements of the sepa- 
rate features — as has been often attempted. 
So far the experiment is an obvious success ; 
for the normal physical peculiarities of a race, 
or of a family, are clearly reproduced in their 
intensity by such a composition. 

But where the experiment of composite 
photography is a failure, is in the search, by 
its means, for the higher ideal type of mind 
or character, as evidenced in the countenance 
of persons of like legitimate profession, pur- 
suit, or attainments, rather than of the same 
family or peculiar race. The real measure 
of power in any person, in his sphere, is that 
quality or characteristic which is his own, 
and which differentiates him from, or which 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 3 5 

raises him above, his fellows in the same 
sphere. That which he has in common with 
others includes first, and more largely, the 
lower plane of human faculties, — the animal 
nature, ordinary mental powers, and rudi- 
mental spiritual perceptions. Then comes, 
in smaller measure even though in greater 
potency, that which is his distinctively; that 
whereby he shows himself as himself, and 
makes his peculiar mark in the world. 

Composite photography can show the com- 
mon, lower qualities of those whose faces are 
brought into combination; but its very pro- 
cess eliminates the qualities which are higher, 
and which are individual. Every person of 
the photographic combination has a larger 
measure of the lower common qualities to 
contribute to the composition ; but the smaller 
and more potent qualities which he has all 
by himself, finding no reinforcement from 
any one of his fellows, are lost sight of in 
the final result, even though every one of his 
fellows has an individuality similar to, but 
not identical with, his own. 



136 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

It would be easy to show the typical face 
of a Semite, of an Aryan, of a negro, or of 
a Mongolian, by a composite photograph; 
but it would not be possible to show by such 
a process the distinctive qualities which mark 
the noblest selected specimens of either of 
those races, in their exhibit of personal pre- 
eminence. The typical face of the criminal 
class in the community may be shown by a 
composite photograph of a score or more of 
specimen criminals; for the grosser animal 
passions and the primitive mental faculties 
are common to all humanity of every grade 
of moral tone; but not even the individual 
traits which give a man exceptional power 
as a criminal among criminals will find a 
trace in such a photograph. 

On the other hand, in a composite photo- 
graph of a like number of men of upright 
life there will not stand out the particular 
mental and moral qualities which enable one 
and another of those men to hold in subjec- 
tion their grosser passions, and to rise above 
the lower mental average of their kind. In 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 3 7 

composite photography, as in every other 
sphere, it is easier to note the lower average 
than the higher exception; easier to disclose 
what one has in common with those below 
him, than that which gives him power to be 
above their level. 

Twenty eminent scientists brought together 
in a composite photograph, will show a face 
of more than average intelligence, without a 
single indication of a master mind in anyone 
sphere of thought or of research. Twenty 
prominent clergymen similarly photographed 
in a single picture, will present a face of kindly 
expression and of thoughtful mood, without 
a single character-line w T hich marks the pos- 
session of leadership among men, which in 
itself evidences experience in life, or which 
commands the instant respect and regard of 
an observer. And so in every direction of 
endeavor to ascertain the higher measure 
of power in a profession, or in an occupation, 
by means of composite photography. A 
typical average can thereby be ascertained; 
but a typical ideal is out of the question. 



1 38 CHARA CTER-SHAPING AND 

But in addition to this composite photog- 
raphy of the human face, there is a kind 
of mental composite photography which is 
just now in popular prominence in the com- 
munity, and which includes the maximum of 
the error with the minimum of the truth 
illustrated in the former experiments. It 
was another eminent anthropologist, Sir John 
Lubbock, who took the lead in this mental 
composite photography, by making out a list 
of the one hundred books which in them- 
selves are supposed to represent the mental 
pabulum of the average well-educated man. 
Other experimenters in mind-making, or in 
mind-diagnosing, have tried their hand at 
similar lists of books; and again some of 
the foremost thinkers or writers in England 
and in America have been asked to name 
the books which have done most to fill their 
minds and to shape their characters ; as if by 
this process of mental composite photography 
the typical average of true mind-furnishing 
could be prevented in a form which all could 
recognize — if not secure. 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 39 

If, indeed, the question were an open one, 
What are the elements of a common-school 
education? this sort of composite mental 
photography would have its value. But 
when it comes to the question of elective 
reading by a person who has already passed 
through the elementary schools, there is no 
such thing as a list of ten books, or of one 
hundred books, or of one thousand books, 
which will naturally tend to bring every 
reader up to a fair average for a person of 
his ability and of his opportunities. One man 
needs one sort of book for his mental quick- 
ening, or for his mental curbing; and another 
man needs just the opposite sort of book. 
One man needs to read one book ten times 
over, while another man needs to read ten 
books of the same general character in quick 
succession. 

An intelligent physician w r ould not be 
likely to commend to the general public a 
list of one hundred articles in the realm of 
materia medica, as, in his opinion, the better 
remedies for the average diseases of the com- 



140 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

munity, and therefore to be made use of by 
everybody. The human mind has its pecu- 
liarities as distinctively as the human body; 
and the average human mind is as likely as 
the average human body to fail in conformity 
to the standard of perfect health. Hence a 
wholesale prescription for the average mind 
is hardly less absurd than a wholesale pre- 
scription for the average body. Each mind, 
like each body, needs individual treatment 
in order to its individual gain; and he who 
aims at only a mental average will never 
attain to the height of a mental ideal. 

The composite mental photographs which 
have been obtained by the recent experi- 
menters on both sides of the ocean are even 
more shadowy in outline, and, in some in- 
stances, more grotesque in expression, than 
the composite facial photographs which have 
glared, or have smiled, at us from the maga- 
zine pages and from the optician's windows. 
Distinctive features as common to all the 
minds represented are not to be seen. 

Thus Mr. Gladstone, for example, names 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 141 

Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Dante, and Bishop 
Butler, as the four authors who have been 
most influential with him. Mr. Ruskin adds 
to his list of Horace, Pindar, Dante, Scott, 
Pope, Byron, Moliere, and others, "good 
French sensation novels," such as those of 
Sue and Dumas. Archdeacon Farrar be- 
gins with Robinson Crusoe and the Arabian 
Nights, and includes Peter Parley and Miss 
Edgeworth. Robert Louis Stevenson couples 
the Gospel of Matthew with Walt Whitman's 
Leaves of Grass. Edw r ard Everett Hale goes 
back to the New York Spelling Book, Cob- 
webs to Catch Flies, and Mrs. Barbauld's 
Early Lessons. A composite mental photo- 
graph made up from this representative com- 
bination would hardly satisfy the maker of 
any one of the many lists of the proper one 
hundred books for the average good reader 
to master; yet it would be as nearly a cor- 
rect type of the features of a well-trained 
intellect as any mental composite photo- 
graph can be. 

That which is a strong man's strength, or 



1 42 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING. 

which is a good man's goodness, as shown 
impressively or attractively in his face, is that 
which is his own distinctively, as over and 
above the strength or the goodness which 
he has in common with the average man of 
his class in the community. The most satis- 
factory picture of a man is one which shows 
him as he is in the direction of his best striv- 
ings, rather than one which shows him as he 
might be if he were not so truly himself. 

So, again, in a man's mental qualities, and 
in his mental attainments, his power and his 
possibilities are in the direction of his own 
peculiar characteristics and endeavors; and 
the best books for any man to read are the 
books which will tend to develop and to 
direct the mind of that man, even though 
they might render no such service to any 
other man in his particular sphere of life. 



XV. 

GAIN IN CHARACTER THROUGH 
ITS EXPRESSION. 



One's character is the stamp of one's real- 
est and innermost self. One's realest and 
innermost self may be, it often is, very differ- 
ent from one's outer and apparent self. One's 
character may not be rightly known to others, 
because it is not clearly shown to others. 
And, in accordance with the universal law 
of nature, one's character gains and grows 
through its free expression; and it limits 
itself and suffers loss through its forced re- 
pression. Hence one's realest and innermost 
self comes, more and more, to be that self 
which seeks and finds expression in one's 
outer conduct and manner. 

It is true that the stronger, the deeper, and 
the nobler is one's realest and innermost per- 
sonal character, the greater is one's shrink- 

i43 



144 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

ing from the disclosure of that character to 
unappreciative and unsympathetic eyes ; and 
the more impossible it is for one to give that 
character its full expression in the outer life. 
Therefore it is that many a keenly sensitive 
nature shuts itself up within itself, not sel- 
fishly, but in a sense of helpless isolation; 
and that many a nature of profoundest feel- 
ing is both unable and unwilling to express 
its every emotion with that freedom which 
characterizes one of a stolid or of a shallow 
nature. 

And therefore, again, it is that many per- 
sons are led to suppose that a strong and true 
nature would lose power rather than gain 
power by its free expression; and that a 
nature which is admirable in its original con- 
stitution will retain its admirableness, while 
jealously shielded within one's innermost per- 
sonality. Yet one's nature and one's character 
are not identical, nor are they always alike; 
and one's character may be the result of in- 
dulging, or of resisting, one's natural traits. 

It is of the nature of a tree to send its 



CHA RA CTER-SHO WING. 1 45 

branches upward. But the gardener may, 
by clipping and bending, direct the whole 
strength of that tree toward a downward 
movement of the branches, until the peculiar 
character of that tree as a tree is its dwarfed 
form, its rounded top, and its reversed order 
of growth. That tree's character could not 
be as distinctive as it is, were that tree's nature 
not as distinctive as it is ; yet it is by the en- 
forced expression of the character, contrary 
to the tree's natural tendency, that the tree's 
character has become what it is. 

By nature a horse is wilful, defiant, and 
impatient of restraint. But by training, a 
horse acquires a character of gentle subor- 
dination to authority, and of readiness to use 
all his powers in the willing service of the 
master he has learned to love. And the dis- 
tinctive character of a good horse, or of a 
bad one, gains or loses according to the ex- 
pression of that distinctive character. If a 
horse is kept in harness, he adapts himself 
more and more to the demands of the har- 
ness; but if he is left to himself, with no 
10 



1 46 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING A ND 

opportunity of expressing his submission to 
the harness, he grows restive and fractious, 
and is in danger of losing the character which 
gave him his chief attractiveness and worth. 
As it is in the lower orders of nature, so it 
is in the higher. Whatever be a man's primal 
nature, his distinctive character will gradually 
be shaped and developed by the expression, 
or by the repression, of his natural charac- 
teristics and tendencies. 

By nature, a man may be quick-tempered, 
and liable to bursts of passionate anger. If 
he were to give free expression to his feel- 
ings on all occasions, his character would 
come to be that of a man of violent and un- 
governable temper. But by the repression of 
his native impulses, that man may come to 
have the character of one who holds his 
temper in close control ; and he may even 
pass for one who has no struggle in the 
mastery of his feelings under provocation. 
It is true, in fact, that men of calmest exte- 
rior and of most uniform equableness of tem- 
per are, in many cases, those who were by 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. I 47 

nature most inclined to violence of speech 
and of action. Similarly with men who are 
by nature methodical or unmethodical, gene- 
rous or penurious, loquacious or reticent, 
affectionate or unloving, demonstrative or 
constrained; their true characters may be 
developed — are constantly developing — in 
the line of their natural inclinations, or in 
the opposite direction, through their unre- 
strained expression, or their enforced repres- 
sion, of their natural selves. 

For example, two persons are alike by 
nature, in a warmth of heart, in a longing 
for sympathy, in a shrinking sensitiveness, in 
a capacity for unselfish devotedness to one 
object of affection, and in a self-centered 
seclusion of innermost personality, that are 
exceptional in their combination and in their 
degree. By opposite courses of treatment, 
these two natures tend to the development of 
two widely different characters. The prefer- 
ences and the impulses of the two persons 
are the same; but the circumstances affecting 
the one and the other are most unlike. 



148 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

One of these persons is denied the privi- 
lege of that exclusive and sympathetic de- 
votedness to a limited circle which his nature 
craves ; but he is called, providentially, in the 
line of his business, or of his Christian work, 
into a sphere where he must adapt himself, 
as far as possible, in speech and manner of 
thought, to persons who are in no sense con- 
genial to him, and with whom his nature has 
at the start nothing in sympathy. Unless he 
shall succeed in showing an interest in these 
persons, and in winning an interest, on their 
part, in himself, his mission will be a failure. 

He cannot bring himself to act insin- 
cerely in this effort, but he can bring himself 
to see something of the personal needs and 
the personal worth of those to whom he is 
sent, from their standpoint of being; and this 
enables him to force, as it were, a real sym- 
pathy with them to the extent of his mission 
in their behalf. Gradually by the expression 
of this enforced sympathy, and by a perse- 
vering endeavor to do that which is not in 
the line of his tastes and preferences, but 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 49 

which is in the line of his duty, he comes to 
an apparent ease and heartiness of manner 
with any and all whom he meets ; so that he 
is counted a man of wide and varied sym- 
pathies, who finds his chiefest pleasure in 
being all things to all men, in order to win 
their favor and to enjoy their grateful appre- 
ciation of his loving labors in their behalf. 

There is nothing in this man's character 
which is inconsistent with this man's nature. 
Indeed, were the nature not as it is, the char- 
acter which manifests itself could not have 
existed. The realest and truest self has been 
all the while struggling for expression, and 
certain phases of that self have found their 
expression — although in another direction 
than its normal one ; while the other phases 
of that self have been denied all expression. 
Hence that character is as it is. 

The other person of these tw r o has no such 
special call to the enforced expression of his 
kindlier feelings in a broader sphere; while 
he, also, is denied the free indulgence of his 
longings for seclusion in congenial compan- 



1 50 CHARA CTER-SHAPING AND 

ionship of soul. The warmth of heart is there, 
and there is the longing for sympathy; but 
the shrinking sensitiveness and the self cen- 
tered seclusion hold back the warm and long- 
ing heart from disclosing its feelings where 
they might not be reciprocated, or indeed com- 
prehended. Repression of feeling causes him 
weariness of very life. The better portion of 
his nobler nature is not called into action. 
Unsatisfied longing and disappointment of 
expectation bring questionings of mind as to 
the worthiness and the affectionateness and 
the fidelity of others. 

As a result, the character of this person 
comes to be, more and more, that of one 
shut up within himself and out of loving 
sympathy with his fellows. He is looked 
upon as a man of cold reserve, and of dis- 
tant and haughty demeanor; and for himself 
he sometimes wishes he were actually a her- 
mit, or at least were more of a recluse than 
he is. Yet his nature is identical with that 
of the person who is supposed to be in warm- 
hearted readiness to show sympathy with 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 15 1 

everybody. The contrast in the two char- 
acters is only in that difference which comes 
through the expression, or the repression, of 
the better nature common to the two. 

As it is in this extreme instance in a single 
sphere, so it is, in a measure, in eveiy realm 
of being. Character gains through its ex- 
pression, and loses through its repression. 
Love grows through its expression. Sym- 
pathy grows through its expression. Knowl- 
edge grows through its expression. The 
artistic sense grows through its expression. 
The religious sentiment grows through its 
expression. The capacity for instruction, for 
administration, for command, grows through 
its expression. The more a man does fn any 
line of wise endeavor, the more he can do in 
that line, and the more of a man he is in that 
line. And the refraining from the free ex- 
pression of love, or of sympathy, or of knowl- 
edge, or of the artistic sense, or of the reli- 
gious sentiment, or of the power of instruction, 
of administration, or of command, both limits 
and lessens that which is thus repressed. 



1 5 2 CHAR A CTER-SHA PING. 

To possess and to exhibit an admirable 
personal character is a duty incumbent on 
every one. In order to possess such a char- 
acter, its exhibit by its expression is a neces- 
sity. He who does not endeavor to express 
those traits and qualities which are the exhibit 
of an admirable personal character, cannot 
hope to retain such a character, even if it 
were his by nature; and he who does en- 
deavor to express them, can hope to gain the 
character which they represent, even though 
he lacked it before. 

In the realm of character, as in the material 
realm, not only is it " more blessed to give 
than to receive," but more is received by giv- 
ing than by receiving ; and while " whosoever 
hath, to him shall be given," whosoever giveth, 
to him shall be given, "and he shall have 
more abundance." Character proves itself 
and improves itself by its wise expression. 



XVI. 
THE COST OF BEING POLISHED. 



Everybody wants to appear polished. Al- 
most everybody thinks that he, or she, is 
polished. But not everybody takes into 
account the cost of being polished; nor 
would everybody submit cheerfully to the 
polishing process, if its cost were fairly 
foreseen. 

To be polished is to shine; and to shine 
in one's sphere is a well-nigh universal crav- 
ing. If men could shine by nature, shine of 
one's unaided substance as the sun shines, 
shining would be without cost, and as easy 
a thing as it was free. But innate luminous- 
ness is not a common characteristic of the 
human race. There are those, it is true, who 
shine from birth, who from beauty of person 
attract the eye and dazzle the sight of those 
about them. But this shining is a rare and 

i53 



154 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

an exceptional quality, and its nature is 
rather that of the glow-worm than of the 
sun; moreover, such shining is not a polish; 
for a polish is never natural, but is always 
acquired by rubbing or friction, as the word 
itself would indicate. 

If men could shine by reflection, as the 
moon shines, shining would still be an easy 
matter for all who were in the rays of a bright 
light. There certainly are those who shine 
from their relation to others, whose brilliancy 
is made apparent by their reflection of the 
light of a distinguished parent, or partner, 
or associate, or friend, of one with whom 
they are linked by their fortunes or their 
labors; but even then their shining indicates 
a personal polish which makes their reflec- 
tion of light a possibility. Proximity to a 
brilliant man does not in itself ensure bril- 
liancy. If one has the polish to shine in 
reflected light, that polish had its cost — as 
polish always has. The cost of being pol- 
ished is inevitable to the polished one; and 
that cost is, in the realm of personality, 



CHA RA CTER-SHO WING. 1 5 5 

always — as it is, ordinarily, in the field of 
mechanics — great in proportion to the hard- 
ness and real worth of the thing polished. 

Wax is easier polished than leather; leather 
than wood. Woods take the highest polish 
of which they are capable, according to their 
relative hardness of fiber and closeness of 
grain. Lead is easier polished than silver; 
pewter than bronze. Marble receives a pol- 
ish by friction which would make no impres- 
sion on granite; but when granite is once 
fairly polished, its lustre will show long after 
the marble has crumbled or tarnished. It is 
a small matter to give a polish to glass or 
agate in comparison with the work necessary 
to bring out the brilliancy of a ruby or a 
sapphire; and a diamond is hardest of all to 
polish, as its worth and brilliancy give it, 
when polished, the pre-eminent place among 
precious stones. 

A similar gradation is found in all personal 
polish. The polish of the manners is easier 
secured than the polish of the intellect, of 
the intellect than of the character. A dan- 



156 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

cing-master can give his pupils all the polish 
that they are after, or that he has to supply, 
in a hundredth part of the time taken by a 
college faculty to polish up their students. 
A table-waiter, or a footman, can secure his 
requisite polish in less time than a good 
salesman. The polish of the sales-room is 
easier of acquisition than the polish of the 
parlor. The highest society-polish is not so 
difficult of attainment as the classic polish 
of an orator or a poet. 

Yet it must not be forgotten that, in the 
lower spheres as in the higher, all polish has 
its inevitable cost — a larger cost than most 
people suppose. If one is a polished dancer, 
or table- waiter, or salesman, or conversation- 
alist, or entertainer, it has cost him a great 
deal of friction to become so. And if a man 
speaks or writes with polish, it has cost him 
far more. The polish of manners may be a 
polish of veneering, of an overlaid surface 
quite different from the main body; but the 
polish of the intellect or of the character 
must be of the main stock— of the polished 



Off A RA CTER-SHO WING. 1 5 7 



one's personality. In both cases, however, 
it is a polish that gives evidence of its cost. 

Polish always comes through friction; and 
friction rubs off excrescences, and smooths 
down roughnesses, and wears away protu- 
berances. Friction, in one's personality, 
-hurts. It requires courage to bear up while 
being polished. It is never a pleasant thing 
to have one's surface peculiarities ground 
down to their base. The polishing process 
lowers one's pride, cuts one's fancies, and 
seems for the time to be destroying one's 
very self. And the more there is to one's 
intellect and character, the greater is the cost 
of one's polishing; and the more essential is 
the need of one's full recognition of that cost, 
and of a heroic acquiescence in it. 

The foremost English biographer of the 
poet Goethe suggests a felicitous illustration 
of this truth, although he uses it in a lower 
sense : " The diamond, it is said, can be pol 
ished only by its own dust; is not this sym 
bolical of the truth that only by its own 
fallings-off can genius properly be taught? 



^ 



I S 8 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING AND 

And is not our very walk, as Goethe says, 
a series of falls ?" 

It is not the chipping off of the diamond's 
surface that polishes the diamond; but it is 
by the wise use of the diamond dust or chip- 
pings, in the hands of a skilled lapidary, that 
the diamond's polish is finally secured. It 
is not the making of mistakes that makes a 
man ; but it is the wise use of mistakes that 
enables a man to be made — to become a 
polished man in his best sphere. 

"Instruction/' says Froude, "does not pre- 
vent waste of time or mistakes; and mis- 
takes themselves are often the best teachers 
of all." Or as Coleridge says, in encourage- 
ment of a wise use of the diamond-chippings 
in character polishing : 

" Mother-sage of self-dominion, 
Firm thy steps, O Melancholy! 
The strongest plume in Wisdom's pinion 
Is the memory of past folly : " — 

that is, the folly being past and not again 
present; for "a sound discretion is not so 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 5 9 

much indicated by never making a mistake, 
as by never repeating it." 

Whenever we see the light and glow of a 
beautiful character, we may know that its 
illuminating power came through its slow 
/ polishing by its own diamond-dust, at the 
V hands of the Great Lapidary. And we can 
be sure that the cost of that polishing in- 
cluded long days and longer nights of suf- 
fering under the soul-friction that brought ^ 
the polish. And when we wince and groan 
under the friction of our own sensitiveness, 
in view of our manifold blunders, and our 
manifold failures, we may feel that all this is 
inevitable if we would be so polished as to 
shine gloriously in the reflected light of the 
Sun of Righteousness. Diamond-polishing 
can be compassed only by diamond-dust fric- 
tion. And the character that has the closest 
diamond grain has anything but the diamond 
brilliancy to begin with : 

" In this dull stone, so poor, and bare 
Of shape or luster, patient care 
Will find for thee a jewel rare. 



l6o CHAR A CTER-SHA PING. 

"But first must skilful hands essay 
With jewel dust to clear away 
The film which hides its fire from day.* 1 

The heavy cost of character-polishing by 
character-friction is unavoidable, and it pays 
well in the end; but it is none the less griev- 
ous at its time, for all that. " All chastening 
[even for one's polishing] seemeth for the 
present to be not joyous, but grievous : yet 
afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit [or 
result] unto them that have been exercised 
[have been polished] thereby, even the fruit 
of righteousness." 



XVII. 

THE ATTITUDE OF WISDOM. 



If all those who would like to be wise, and 
to be known as wise, would put themselves 
in the attitude of wisdom, there would soon 
be more wise persons in the world, and more 
wisdom among the sons and daughters of 
men. But with the increase of wisdom, there 
would be a corresponding decrease of the 
claim, and of the thought, of being wise. 
The wiser one is, the less confidence he has 
in his wisdom, and the more conscious he is 
of a lack in that direction. Indeed, one who 
counts himself wise is thereby shut out from 
the attitude of wisdom ; while he who is in 
the attitude of wisdom is thereby shut out 
from counting himself wise. 

But what is this attitude of wisdom? It 

is important to know that, to begin with. The 

attitude of wisdom is the attitude of a child; 
ii 161 



1 62 CHAR A CTER-SHA PING AND 

it is child-likeness, in the desire and in the 
readiness to learn. It is the attitude of one 
who feels the need of being taught, and who 
craves instruction. It is not the attitude of 
one who wants to know, but the attitude of 
one who wants to learn ; for there is a marked 
distinction between wanting to know and 
wanting to learn. There are very few per- 
sons who do not want to know; but there 
are a great many persons who do not want 
to learn. Knowledge is tempting to almost 
everybody. Learning is attractive to only 
here and there a person. 

One enters a gallery of paintings or sculp- 
ture, a library, a museum, a cathedral, an ex- 
position of scientific apparatus; of course he 
would like to know all about its contents; it 
would be a gratification to him to feel that he 
had this knowledge, to be able to show that 
he had this knowledge, to find himself com- 
petent to make use of this knowledge; all 
this is well, as commendable in its way as it 
is common on every side; but this desire for 
knowledge is not in itself a desire to learn. 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 63 

He who is in the attitude of wisdom, in such 
a place, is impressed first with a sense of his 
ignorance; that'll not always the case with a 
man who would like to know all about these 
things. Then, his desire is to be taught, 
to learn then and there what he would not 
be likely to learn elsewhere. It is not learn- 
ing for the sake of knowing, that he craves, 
but learning for the sake of learning; not 
learning in order that he may know, but learn- 
ing because he does not know; not learning 
in order to swell his supply of knowledge, 
but learning in order to diminish his stock 
of ignorance. That attitude makes him a 
continual learner, where learning is a possi- 
bility. That attitude is child-likeness, with- 
out which wisdom is an impossibility. 

Solomon was in the attitude of wisdom, 
when he received wisdom from the Lord; 
indeed, until a man is in the attitude of wis- 
dom he cannot expect the Lord to give him 
wisdom. Solomon was doubtless as well in- 
formed and of as well trained a mind as most 
young men of his day, when he was called 



1 64 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING AND 

to kingly service, as the successor of his 
father, David. But Solomon's thought, in 
the face of his new duties and responsibilities 
was: "I am but a little child: I know not 
how to go out or come in ; " and his longing 
was for wisdom. He knew enough to know 
that he did not know enough, and he wanted 
to learn, because he felt his need of learning. 

And because of his attitude as a seeker for 
wisdom, Solomon's prayer was answered in 
its very offering. " Because thou hast asked 
this thing [because thou hast felt this need, 
and hast asked accordingly]; . . . behold, I 
have done according to thy word : lo, I have 
given thee a wise and an understanding heart ; 
so that there was none like thee before thee, 
neither after thee shall any arise like unto 
thee." He who is in the attitude of wisdom, 
like Solomon when he offered that prayer, 
already has a measure of wisdom like Solo- 
mon's, as a cause and as a result of being in 
that attitude. 

When One wiser than Solomon was asked, 
"Who then is greatest in the kingdom of 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 65 

heaven?" — Who among the servants of the 
Messiah is greatest? — "he called to him a 
little child, and set him in the midst of them, 
and said, Verily I say unto you, except ye 
turn, and become as little children, ye shall 
in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as 
this little child, the same is the greatest in 
the kingdom of heaven." And so, by the 
testimony of Him who spake as never mere 
man spake, as well as by the illustration of 
him who was wisest among mere men, the 
attitude of wisdom is the attitude of child- 
likeness. 

But, it may be asked, must one always 
count himself a child? Can one never feel 
that now he has learned ; that at last he has 
come to know? Must he be continually in 
doubt about himself and his acquirements, 
so that he is a hesitating questioner, before 
his duties and his responsibilities, all his life 
long? Did Solomon feel, to the day of his 
death, that he was but a little child, not 
knowing how to go out or come in? In 



1 66 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

answer to these questions, it is sufficient to 
call attention to the difference between learn- 
ing and teaching ; between considering one's 
duty in advance, and acting in the line of 
one's recognized duty. When one is called 
to teach, he must show his wisdom in 
declaring the truth as he knows it. Not 
questioning but answering, not learning but 
instructing, is then his mission. When he is 
summoned to immediate action, he must act 
immediately, on the knowledge, and with the 
wisdom, which is already his. That is a very 
different matter from facing a teacher, from 
facing a subject of thought, or from facing 
an object of interest, without any call to teach 
or to act, but with the possibility of standing 
in the attitude of a learner, in order to learn 
something more. 

It is doubtless true, that Solomon acted 
promptly and wisely in every emergency, in 
the exercise of that wisdom w T hich was given 
him in response to his request for it. But it 
is probably also true, that to the day of his 
death Solomon approached every new sub- 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 67 

ject of study, and every fresh case for con- 
sideration, in that child-like attitude in which 
he stood before God at Gibeon, seeking to 
learn in order that he might supply the lack 
of knowledge which oppressed him ; for that 
is the sure attitude of wisdom, and of the 
truly wise man, always. 

There is no more unfailing mark of the 
difference between the wise man and the un- 
wise man, between the man who is sure to 
make good use of his present knowledge 
and to gain in knowledge and in its wise use 
steadily, and the man whose wisdom is lim- 
ited, and is not likely to advance beyond 
its present limits, — than in the child-like atti- 
tude of the one, and in the self-confident, or 
the self-seeking, attitude of the other. The 
wise man is ever in the attitude of the needy 
learner, in the presence of any person or 
theme or thing from which, or about which, 
learning is a possibility. A truly great scholar 
is always a learner. When he talks with 
another, he wants to learn, he expects to learn, 
he tries to learn; not what he can hear, but 



1 68 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING AND 

what he can learn, is his thought. A mod- 
erate scholar or an inferior person is more 
likely to tell what he knows, or to be indiffer- 
ent to what is said to him, in conversation; 
because he does not feel a pressing need of 
learning, or because he does not think he can 
learn from this source. It is the same in 
study. The great scholar is always seeking to 
learn, through his studies; not what he can 
read, but what can he learn, is his thought. 

Pick out, for example, the men of greatest 
ability in our Bible Revision companies, and 
you will find that you have chosen men of a 
child-like attitude, who are unceasing learn- 
ers. If, perchance, there be one man of their 
number who thinks he knows it all, he is the 
one man who never learned at all. There, 
as elsewhere, "if any man thinketh that he 
knoweth anything, he knoweth not yet as he 
ought to know." So also it is in the sphere 
of judicial ability. The foremost jurist ap- 
proaches each new case with the same child- 
like spirit, in his desire to learn the truth 
concerning the principles which it involves, 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 69 

as in his earliest experience. One who had 
been nearly thirty years on the bench said, 
not long ago, that he was now less confident 
of his judgment concerning any case submit- 
ted to him than a quarter of a century ago, 
and that he now studied and heard argu- 
ments with an ever-fresh desire to learn. Not 
what he thinks, not what he already knows, 
but what he can newly learn, is his aim in 
every new case. 

So again in the realm of art. The ordinary 
observer wants to know all about this paint- 
ing, or this piece of sculpture, or this cathe- 
dral at which he looks. He glances at the 
guide-book, he hears or remembers what one 
and another has said about it, he compares 
it hastily with other like or unlike works of 
art which he has seen, in order that he may 
have an opinion about it. That is his way 
of trying to have knowledge on the subject. 
But the wise observer bears himself very dif- 
ferently. His thought is, Here is a master- 
piece of art which I am wholly incapable of 
comprehending, in all its power, at a glance. 



170 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

Now, what — even if no more than one sim- 
ple thing — can I learn from it, or about it, 
while I am here before it? I must not let my 
impressions, or my preferences, sway me. I 
must not be satisfied with what others have 
to say. I am here to learn, and I must stand 
in the attitude of a learner, the attitude of 
wisdom, in order that I may learn. Not what 
he can see, but what he can learn, is the 
thought of such a man. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds said, that when he 
first looked upon the frescoes of Raphael in 
the Vatican he could not see their beauty ; 
but with his art-training he knew enough 
to know that he could not trust his instant 
judgment to pass intelligently on the work 
of a master in art. He was wise enough to 
feel that his disappointment must be a result 
of his own ignorance; therefore he stood 
before those paintings in the attitude of a 
learner, which is the attitude of wisdom. 
Day after day he looked as a learner, and he 
learned through looking. And it was be- 
cause of his constant attitude that he was a 



CHARACTER-SHOWING. 171 

constant learner. No one can think of Rus- 
kin as lacking in confidence and positiveness 
as an art-teacher; but his attitude before any 
work of art is as a learner. After writing a 
library on art-topics, he can go to Florence 
and spend three months in the attitude of a 
learner, in a single old church there; because 
he is a wise man, in his sphere, and therefore 
he places himself in the attitude of wisdom. 

Shadowy, and even profitless, as this dis- 
tinction may seem, to the minds of some, its 
practical results are of incalculable impor- 
tance. The highest results of attainment in 
scholarship, in science, and in true culture, 
are ever and only to him who stands before 
truth in the attitude of a learner; in the child- 
like attitude of wisdom. He who desires 
knowledge more than he desires to learn, 
will be limited in his gain of knowledge, and 
yet more limited in its wise use. He, on the 
other hand, who more desires to learn than 
to gain knowledge, is surer to be a learner, 
and in the end to have not only knowledge, 
but the power of using knowledge. Knowl- 



172 CHARACTER-SHAPING. 

edge without wisdom is of little worth. Wis- 
dom is not given to him who refuses to 
maintain the attitude of wisdom. Knowl- 
edge puffeth up. Wisdom buildeth up. 

" Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, 
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds, 
Till smoothed and squared, and fitted to its place, 
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. 
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much ; 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." 

Lord, " so teach us to number our days, that 
we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." 



XVIII. 
THE SECRET OF CONTENTMENT. 



Before looking for the secret of content- 
ment, it may be well to consider what con- 
tentment is, and whether it is really worth 
seeking or having. There is a popular idea 
of contentment which is anything but at- 
tractive to a noble mind. That idea repre- 
sents contentment as taking a contracted 
view of one's privileges and duties; as being 
in a measure indifferent to one's lot; as grow- 
ing out of, or as tending to, slothfulness and 
inactivity. If that be the correct idea of 
contentment, the less there is of it in the 
world the better it will be for the world; 
and the only good reason for our learning 
its secret would be in order to its avoiding. 

Contentment is literally the being con- 
tained within limits; it is the recognizing of 
one's bounds, and the acquiescing in one's 

i73 



1 74 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING AND 

destiny; it is the satisfying one's self with 
what one has, or fairly can have. Content- 
ment does not necessarily involve a con- 
tracted view of life. One who sees in his 
present station a center of world-wide influ- 
ence and of world-wide opportunities, may 
be contented with, and in, his sphere; but 
his limitations can hardly be called con- 
tracted. 

If a man believes that it is his destiny 
to compass results that shall influence the 
lives of millions, and affect the welfare of 
coming generations, he may be contented to 
accept that destiny, without being indifferent 
to the magnitude of its responsibilities. And 
if he believes that in the accomplishing of 
his proper life-work he must have an endless 
life-struggle, he may be contented to live in 
unceasing and tireless combat with his sur- 
roundings; and if this be his case, who 
would call him slothful or inactive? 

Contentment is of one's self rather than 
of one's condition. It depends not so much 
on where one is, or what one has, or what 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 7 5 

one is doing or enduring, as upon one's per- 
sonal view of his place, of his experiencings, 
and of his possessions, in their relation to 
his present duty and to his ultimate happi- 
ness and welfare. A pleasure-seeking pas- 
senger will sometimes chafe and worry under 
the discomforts and annoyances of a railroad 
and its appointments, when he is making the 
one trip of his life in that direction ; while a 
conductor on that same road — who is every 
way as energetic and ambitious a man as 
that passenger — passing over the route twice 
a day, six days in the week, year in and year 
out, is eminently contented and composed as 
he journeys to and fro; because that is not 
only his way of providing for his family just 
now, but it may prove a stepping-stone to 
the general superintendency of the road, or 
to its presidency. 

An inefficient and unambitious clerk in 
any large business establishment is more 
likely to be discontented under any added 
pressure of work, or any special extension 
of hours, than a clerk who makes that busi- 



1 76 CHA RA CTER-SHA PING A ND 

ness his own and rejoices in its signs of 
prosperity. The narrower the man, just 
there, the greater his discontent in his 
sphere. Persons who find it difficult to be 
contented with the limits of a three-story 
brown-stone house in the city will content 
themselves at a fashionable seaside or moun- 
tain hotel in July or August — within quar- 
ters to which they would be ashamed to stint 
their servants in their city residence. 

The true secret of contentment is in one's 
conviction that the place he is now in, is his 
place for now ; that the work he is now doing 
is the work that now needs doing, and that 
he ought to do now; that he is better situ- 
ated, at the present moment, for effort or for 
endurance that shall tend to his own highest 
good, and to the good of the persons and of 
the interests dearest to him, than would be 
possible elsewhere in all the universe; that, 
in fact, his present sphere, his present oppor- 
tunities, and his present possessions, are those 
which above all others he ought to desire, 
and which he would desire, if he only knew 






CHARA CTER-SHO WING. 1 77 

enough about them and their tendings. Such 
a conviction as this may have its approach 
on a lower sphere, but in its fulness it is 
possible only to him who is a faith -filled 
child of God, assured that his Father has 
assigned him to his place and duty, and has 
permitted to him his possessions and sur- 
roundings, in unfailing wisdom and in limit- 
less love. 

There is a measure of contentment to the 
good soldier at his post of regularly assigned 
service; to the earnest worker who comes 
and goes at the direction of his employer, 
or at the dictates of his own hopes or judg- 
ment; and to the unselfish seeker of the 
welfare of those whom he loves, so long as 
he is sure that his labors or his privations 
are promotive of their happiness ; but there 
is always a recognized limit to the wisdom 
of one's earthly commander or employer, 
and of one's self; and as soon as one reaches 
out beyond limits he has discontent. Con- 
tentment is the keeping within limits. Only 

when one feels that He who directs him and 
12 



178 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING AND 

directs for him has no limits of either wisdom 
or love in this directing, can he be 

"Shut up 
In measureless content." 

Only then can he have no possible cause for 
discontent or doubt. 

If we have not faith in God as our God; 
if we do not believe that God loves us and 
guards us, and makes all things work to- 
gether for good to us as his loved ones; 
then, indeed, it is hard for us to be con- 
tented; and it ought to be. Discontent is 
our duty while in such a state; and a change 
of state is the only secret of possible con- 
tentment to us. But if we are God's loved 
ones, through faith in his Son; if we believe 
that God has taken us into his family circle, 
and into the scope of his providential plans 
for the universe, — then, certainly, we may be 
sure that he rules and overrules in all things 
for our welfare, and that he is now doing for 
us better than we could possibly do or desire 
for ourselves. 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 79 

Our observations and experiences in life 
are certainly sufficient to show us that if 
we were to choose for ourselves in our lot 
or our possessions or our surroundings we 
should probably choose to our own harm. 
We know that nothing would be worse for a 
little child than to be permitted to have its 
own way; that that child would be as likely 
to take an open razor as a harmless toy, and 
liable to swallow poison rather than nourish- 
ing food when both were before it. The 
hope of a child is in parental control within 
wise limitations. A child of God needs a 
like control within the limitations which only 
God can now fix wisely; and a conscious- 
ness of this truth tends to the child of God's 
contentment. 

If, indeed, we are not contented in one 
sphere or lot, as God's children, we should 
not be likely to be in another. The spirit 
of self-confidence on the one hand, and o) 
distrust of God on the other, which would 
make us unwilling to accept God's orderings 
and God's limitations as unmistakably wisest 



180 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

and best, in the place where we now are, 
would surely bring a like result in any other 
place to which God could assign us. Arch- 
bishop Whately said, that, as a rule, it was 
harder to live within a large income than a 
small one; or, in other words, that to the 
man who had not learned how to bring his 
expenditures within his income while it was 
of moderate size, temptations to extravagance 
would increase more rapidly than his income, 
as that was extended. And so it may be 
said of the man who has not learned to 
accept God's ordering as wise and loving in 
the humbler sphere of his duty and privilege; 
the wider and the fuller the field which God 
assigns to him, the larger the sweep of his 
cravings beyond. 

He who does not have contentment in 
poverty, or in sickness, or in solitariness, or 
in hardships, when this is his lot in life, 
would not have contentment in wealth, or 
in health, or in society, or in ease and luxury, 
were he newly called to this condition. And 
as a matter of fact it is evident that there is 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 8 1 

more of real contentment in this world where 
there is seemingly least occasion for it, and 
more of discontent where there is smallest 
apparent excuse for it. He who is not con- 
tented where God puts him on earth would 
be discontented in heaven; and discontent 
would make a hell of heaven — or earth. 

But being contented with one's present lot 
and sphere for the present, does not preclude 
the possibility of desiring and expecting and 
purposing to be in another lot and sphere 
by and by. Because the good soldier is now 
on outpost duty by his commander's order, 
it does not follow that he expects to live and 
die there; although he would be willing for 
that, if that were his commander's direction. 
The soldier's hope is of other service by and 
by and elsewhere; better service for him for 
then, but not better for now. So with the 
faithful follower of Christ. His place at this 
moment is, to him, the center of the universe 
for this moment. But another moment all 
may be different. He lives but a moment 
at a time, accepting his assignment of place 



1 82 CHA RA CTER-SHAPING AND 

and duty, and his apportionment of supplies, 
as his Master shall direct, for each moment. 
It may be that his duty of this moment is in 
making ready for the next; that his duty in 
this sphere is in struggling to get out of this 
sphere. If so, he is contented in this struggle 
of preparation, or of performance. 

If a man finds himself sliding down a 
slope he is not to be contented to slide; but 
he is to be contented to ha'ng on as for dear 
life, and to scramble up that steep as if he 
were scaling the battlements of heaven. In 
this understanding of one's duty, the most 
contented man may be the most sublimely 
enthusiastic man, and the most terribly ener- 
getic man, imaginable. He stands in the 
place of places, where he ought to stand; 
he is set to do the work of works, which he 
ought to do; and he has all the power of 
God pledged to his supply and support, in 
order to his final triumph. There is no 
narrowness, no indifference, no sloth, in such 
contentment ! 

"The noblest mind the best contentment has." 



CHARA CTER-SHO WING. 1 83 

Contentment is, indeed, often a duty, when 
satisfaction is not. Every child of God 
ought to be contented with, or for the time 
being contained within, the lot and the sphere 
to which God has assigned him. But no 
child of God ought ever to be satisfied with 
his present lot and sphere, so that he has no 
desire and no hope for higher attainment 
and for better things beyond. 

A lad who is compelled to drudge away, 
with scanty pay, in the lowest place in some 
great establishment, in order to keep body 
and soul together, or to provide for his loved 
mother, has a duty to be contented in that 
position, while it is the best that he can yet 
secure. But it is not by any means that lad's 
duty to be satisfied with that position for all 
his life; as if it were the highest and best to 
which he could aspire. So, again, if a man 
were to find himself maimed and bruised at 
the base of a cliff, whither he had fallen by 
no fault of his own, it would be his duty to 
be contented in his lot of peril and suffering 
just then and there; but it would not be his 



1 84 CHARACTER-SHAPING. 

duty to be satisfied to remain in that condi- 
tion, if he could hope to obtain relief by 
his own struggling, or by his shouting for 
help, or by his praying for some providential 
relief. 

An unsatisfied spirit is indeed an insepar- 
able accompaniment of a rightly contented 
spirit The same Apostle who declared that 
he had learned in whatsoever state he was 
therein to be content, said also that the one 
thing he was always doing was reaching out 
from the state he was in with an unsatisfied 
striving after that which was yet in advance 
of that. state. And so long as a man is a 
true man he will find his contentment in 
being unsatisfied. He will know that he is 
just now in the best place God knows of for 
his present lot, and that God has a still better 
place in store for him. 



XIX. 

CHARACTER INDICATED IN MODES 
OF THANKING. 



An expression of thanks, in the ordinary 
intercourse of life, is one of the commonest 

' exhibits of natural courtesy. It is the in- 
stinctive manifestation of personal civility. 
It is both given and received, as a matter of 
course, between those who are on the same 
plane, and again between those who are rec- 
ognized as on very different social levels. It 
comes to the lips of the giver, and it strikes 
the ear of the receiver, a hundred times a 

-s day, without a thought, on the part of either, ^ 

of its special meaning, or of its special 

prompting, so utterly conventional has its — 

use become in every rank and walk of life. 

Yet the veiy word "thank" is in its r oot form 

the same as "think." It indicates a thought, 

or thinking; the having in mind, and the 

185 

\ 



^>v 



1 86 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 



f 

I bearing in mind gratefully, that which has 

called it forth./ It is, in its primitive concep- 
tion, an assurance and a pledge of gratitude. 
And because this is the root idea of thanks, 
the various conventional and unconventional 
modes of thanking are indications and ex- 
pressions of the personal character of the one 
who gives the thanks. 

As in the matter of salutations, so in the 
matter of expressing gratitude, conventional 
forms come to take the place of hearty and 
spontaneous exhibits of thought and feeling. 
^ Men say "Good-by," without any idea of 
^ praying " God be with you." And they even 
say, " How do you do? " or " How-dy-do," or 
yet more bluntly, in some sections, " Howdy/' 
with no intelligent purpose of an inquiry into 
another's health ; and often without even an 
interrogative form or tone in the expression 
itself. Similarly, men say " Thank you/' or, 
as the bluntest and most unmeaning of all 
tolerated forms of a civil recognition of a favor — 
received, "Thanks," without any thought of 
gratitude felt or expressed. And hereby, in 



V 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 87 

the very absence of " thinking " in " thanking," 
men disclose their character — or, so far, their 
lack of character. 

Any man who really thinks of giving thanks 

l would never say "Thanks" as an expression 
of his thought of thanks. He would want 
to say more than that. He would be sure to 
make the matter personal so far, at least, as 
to say " I thank you," or " I am grateful to 
you." And just in proportion as a thought 
of thankfulness prevails with a man will that 
thought find its expression in the words and 

- manner of his thanking. It is true that 
thought and feeling are not always called 
for in any large measure in the ordinary in- 
tercourse of the world, either in salutations 
or in the recognition of the common civili- 
ties of life. Hence it is that the conventional 
forms, in both cases, are accepted as current 
counters to take the place of real coin. 

Thus it is, for example, that the abbrevi- 
ated form "Thanks" has come to be em- 
ployed so widely as a sufficient recognition 
of the ordinary minor ministries of a servant. 



1 88 CHARA CTER-SHAPING AND 

There is no intention of showing an excep- 
tional degree of thought or feeling in such a 
matter. Thus it is, also, in the more common 
courtesies between strangers, as when a gen- 
tleman gives another the precedence as the 
two come together at the doorway of a pub- 
lic building, or as they meet on a crowded 
pavement; or as when a gentleman picks up 
a handkerchief or a fan which a lady near 
him has dropped, and hands it to her, touch- 
ing his hat as he does so. The simple word 
" Thanks/' in either instance, is designed quite 
as much to show the good breeding of the 
one who utters it, as it is to show any grati- 
tude to the one to whom it is uttered. 

Even in a matter like this the exceptional 
character of a man or of a woman will be 
sure to show itself, by a departure from the 
purely conventional forms which "society" 
has prescribed, in an expression of thanks 
which clearly shows thinking; but excep- 
tional character is not to be looked for on 
every side. If, however, a gentleman rises 
from his seat in a crowded street-car in order 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 89 

to allow a lady to take it, it would indicate 
a lack of true womanly thoughtfulness and 
consideration on her part for her to say sim- 
ply "Thanks;" as she might say to a hotel 
waiter who handed her a glass of w r ater at 
the table. A special act of self-denial like 
that of the gentleman in a case like this, 
calls for a thoughtful recognition of the 
service by the lady; and her character is 
indicated by her manner and words in the 
premises. 

But it is at those times when there would 
seem to be a clear cause of personal grati- 
tude, that character is most plainly indicated 
in the manner of thanking. Real thankful- 
— ness, as a result of real thoughtfulness, will 
never be satisfied with mere conventional 
forms of expression. It must show itself 
as itself, not as other people expect it to be 
exhibited. And it is when an exceptional 
r token of loving interest in another is received 
i and acknowledged as if it were an ordinary 
courtesy, or as if it were on the same plane 
with the customary gifts on a wedding occa- 



190 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

sion, on a birthday, or at the Christmas 
season, that the heartiest words of formal 
thankfulness must be recognized by the re- 
ceiver, and be felt by the giver, as out of 
place and utterly insufficient. 

When the service rendered is a service 
which he who does it would neveiLbe ex- 
pected to render in the ordinary round of 
social courtesies, or when the gift bestowed 
is one which must have cost the giver toil- 
some effort, or manifest self-denial, it would 
be almost heartless to acknowledge it in set 
phrases of conventional thanks. And here 
it is that character shows itself in the dis- 
cerning of the true measure of the service or 
the gift, and in the expression of the corres- 
ponding measure of thanks for it. 

It requires character to see when the thanks 
J are due to the spirit which prompted the ser- 
vice or the gift, rather than for the service or 
the gift itself. If the service or the gift be 
the chief thing proffered and accepted, then, 
indeed, a due proportion of hearty words of 
thanks will meet the case. But if the service 



CHA RA CTER-SHO WING. 1 9 1 

or the gift of the hour be a simple indication 
of a spirit which would find no limit but op- 
portunity and ability, in the same direction, 
then the thinking of the receiver must find 
its expression in thankings which are uncon- 
ventional, and which transcend the bounds 
of ordinary forms of speech. Many a full 
heart has been hurt by the very freeness of 
I thanks for a service or a gift which has evi- 
| dently been looked at only in the light of its 
! intrinsic value; when that same heart would 
have been made joyous by seeing that the 
receiver so fully appreciated the motive of 
the giver or doer as to be unable to return 
other thanks than a speechless, tearful look. 

To lay special emphasis upon the minor 
element in a subject of thanks, and to ignore 
or to undervalue the more important factor 
in that subject, is to indicate a lack of char- 
acter, and to disappoint accordingly the one 
to whom the thanks are rendered. If, for 
example, it were found necessary to secure 
new life's blood by transfusion, as a means of 
rescuing one from death, and a friend should 



1 92 CHAR A CTER-SHAPING AND 

instantly bare his arm to the lancet, and sit 
by the bedside of the patient while the trans- 
fer of his heart's blood was made for the 
other's benefit, what would be thought of a 
patient who should look up at the close of 
the operation and say to his self-surrendering 
friend, "I thank you for your kindness in 
helping me at this time. You are very good 
to have delayed attention to your business 
for this half-hour for the sake of assisting 
me;" or, "I'm very much obliged to you for 
this gift of a pint of blood, and I shall re- 
member it gratefully "? 

Yet there is a great deal of this kind of 
thanking in the world, — where the mere time 
taken for the service rendered, or the mere 
worth of the material gift bestowed, is made 
prominent in the expression of thanks, while 
the stintless devotion of the loving one seems 
unrecognized in its pre-eminence. And such 
thanking is a cause of bitter disappointment 
to the one thanked. 

And, again, there is thanking which shows 
thinking — and feeling which is peeper than 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 9 3 

thinking; and which also shows the excep- 
tional character of the thinking and feeling 
thanker. And nothing in human experience 
is more grateful to the heart of one who gives 
to or who does for another gladly, than thanks 
which are thus discriminatingly and heartily 
appreciative. 

A son has planned a surprise gift to his 
mother at a cost of some self-denial. When 
she sees the gift, she also, with a mother's 
insight, sees its prompting and its history; 
and, turning instantly from the gift, she throws 
her arms lovingly about her son, and says : 
"My dear, dear boy, how good this is of 
you!" How cold alongside of such thank- 
ing as this would be the warmest words of 
conventional thanks for the gift as a gift ! 

A man has given himself in unreserved 
devotedness to a political canvass in behalf 
of a candidate whom he loves and honors 
without limit or measure. At the close of 
the successful canvass, the candidate gives 
his heartiest thanks to all ordinary workers 
in his behalf. At last he turns to this friend, 
13 



1 94 CHA RA CTER-SHA PING. 

and, instead of thanking him as he has 
thanked the others, he says with welling 
heart and trembling voice: " You I cannot 
thank. To proffer you thanks would seem 
to intimate that your loving service could be 
measured. But you have made this canvass 
your own; and I feel that you have been the 
real winner in it quite as truly as I have. You 
seem to me to be a part of my very self in 
all this. I am too grateful to thank you." 
And that is simply an exhibit of high char- 
acter in thanking. yr 

Whenever there is/ thinking in a man's 
thanking of his fellow-man or of Gody the 
character of(the thinking thanker yrill show 
itself in the unconventional expression of 
thanks, and in the direction of those thanks 
toward the giver as a giver, rather than to- 
ward his gifts as gifts. So it is that our char- 
acter shows itself in our prayers to God, and 
in our acknowledgments of the loving service 
of any to whom we ought to be grateful. 



XX. 



Q 



FACING BACKWARD, OR FACING 
FORWARD. 



By nature man seems intended to face in 
the direction of his walking. But, as a prac- 
tical truth, few men walk through life w r ith 
their faces persistently set forward. Some, 
as they walk, have their faces down at their 
feet, looking to their steps in carefulness ; or 
watching for possible treasures on the earth 
they are treading; or not venturing to raise 
their eyes because of an oppressive sense of 
their own unworthiness. Others look back 
with longing for that which is behind them, 
or with regrets over that which they missed, 
and go forward with vain self-reproaches 
over former failures, or with useless wishes 
for a retention of the enjoyable things from 
which they are moving away. Others, again, 
as they walk, give sidelong glances at that 

i95 



196 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

which is on their either hand, without gain- 
ing a clear full view, from either front or rear, 
of that which strikes their eyes. Yet others 
look only upward, as they move on in life, 
seeking to gain a sight of the invisible, and 
to be lifted thereby in spirit above the trials 
and the needs of their earthly course; and in 
this their eyes are too often turned away from 
the duties and privileges which await them 
in their path of progress. 

There are those who turn their whole 
bodies toward the starting-point of their 
life's journey, instead of toward its destina- 
tion, and walk backward, with their faces set 
on that which is now before their eyes when 
it ought to be behind their backs. Again, 
there are those who, with their faces set 
toward their destination, move onward with 
their eyes fixed on that which is in sight 
before them, and in expectant outlook for 
that which is yet to appear in the same 
direction. Looking downward, looking up- 
ward, looking backward, looking sideways, 
are common ways of looking as one moves 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 97 

on in his life-course; and all these ways 
have their advantages as varying methods 
within their respective limits; but facing to 
the rear and walking backward is the poorest 
way of all of making progress in life. And 
the best way of all is walking forward and 
facing as one walks. 

There are two ways of making progress 
in knowledge, — walking backward and walk- 
ing forward, — and it is probably true that 
more men walk backward than walk forward 
in the path of knowledge. In the one case 
the man fixes his eyes on the knowledge 
already acquired by him, and walks back- 
ward facing his acquisitions of knowledge. 
He does not indeed claim, nor even suppose, 
that he knows all that is to be known; but 
he sees no signs of unattained knowledge in 
that on which his eyes rest as he moves 
backward with his face toward that which is 
already his. There is no active expectancy 
of further acquisitions of knowledge in his 
mind, because he sees no place for such 
acquisitions. Nor does he have any doubts 



198 CHARACTER-SHAPING AND 

as to the fulness and accuracy of the knowl- 
edge which he has. Any addition to or 
correction of that knowledge is, in a sense, 
forced upon him ; and it brings with it only 
a confirmation of his conviction that his 
stock of knowledge is a great and a grow- 
ing one. 

In the other case, however, the man with 
his face set toward yet unattained knowledge 
loses sight of that which he has already 
gained. As soon as he has made an acqui- 
sition, it is put behind him, and he presses 
forward toward that which is still in advance. 
The more he knows, the more he sees of his 
comparative ignorance. He is always ex- 
pecting to gain, but he is never satisfied with 
what he does gain. Such a man makes 
larger and more constant additions to his 
store of knowledge than the other; even 
though he has no such supreme satisfac- 
tion with it. 

There are two ways of journeying toward 
heaven, — walking thither with the face for- 
ward, and walking thither with the face back- 



CHAR A CTER-SHO WING. 1 99 

ward. In the one case the believer has hope 
as well as faith. He is sure that the best 
things are before him, and not behind him. 
In the other case, he can see only the good 
that has been. His faith is practically with- 
out hope. He whose outlook is the forward 
one, finds added cheer in every gleam of 
light, and in every new token of God's loving 
favor. These are in themselves incentives 
to him to press on with zeal and enthusiasm 
toward their source, and so toward the enjoy- 
ment of which they give him promise. 

But he whose face is in the direction of 
the past, finds continually only fresh cause 
for thinking that the greatest good is thither- 
ward. All the good he sees he is moving 
away from. Every step of his progress takes 
the only brightness he has known one step 
farther away from him. His very blessings 
as he journeys come in upon him from be- 
hind, and he has never a glimpse of them 
until they are already receding in the dis- 
tance. And so it is that, while both believers 
are helped heavenward by the good gifts 



200 CHARACTER-SHAPING. 

which their Father sends to them, the one 
is led by these blessings, with his face glow- 
ing in their coming light; while the other is 
pushed backward by these blessings, with 
his face saddened by his regrets that he must 
move away from the only good which has 
ever gladdened his pilgrim eyes. 

Every Christian believer is moving in one 
of these ways on his heavenward course; 
and it is for him to decide which way shall 
be his. He can walk toward the light, or 
he can turn his back upon it. He can insist 
on believing that he is moving away from 
the good old days; or he can be sure that 
the best days and the best things which God 
has for his children are ever and always yet 
to come. And so it is that in the passing 
years one believer looks sadly upon the 
years which he is leaving, while another 
looks forward in hope to the years which 
are coming. And this difference of attitude 
toward the years as they come and go, is the 
result of a radical difference of character in 
him who observes the years. 



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